j        LIBRARY  OF  PRlNCerON 


' 


FS     42004 


THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARV 


THE  CANON 


OF 


THE  OLD  TESTAMSm, 


BY 


TOBIAS     MULLEN, 

Bishop  of  Erie. 


"  I,  for  my  part,  would  not  believe  the  Gospel,  unless  the  authority  of  the 

Catholic  Church  moved  me  to  it." 

S.  Aug.  Contra  Ej).  Man.  Fund. 


1892. 


FR.    PUSTET, 
Printer  to  the  Holy  Apostolic  See  and  the  S.  Congregation  of  Rites. 


FR.    PUSTET    &    CO., 
NEW  YORK. 


"  Entered  according  to  act  of  Cougress  in  the  year  1888,  by 

TOBIAS    MULLEN, 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington." 


N.   y.  C.  VROTECTORT  PRINT, 
WEST  CHESTER,  N,  Y. 


PREFACE. 

Western  Christendom  is  still  infested  with  the  plague 
of  religious  controversy,  a  baneful  heritage  transmitted 
to  the  present  age  by  certain  theologians  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  That  heritage  has  in  too  many  instances  led 
long  ago  to  deeds  of  violence  and  bloodshed  disgrace- 
ful not  only  to  all  who  encouraged  them,  but  particu- 
larly so,  to  those  forms  of  religious  belief  in  whose 
behalf  they  were  perpetrated.  Christians,  however, 
convinced  that  those  who  sought  in  that  way  to  force 
their  opinions  upon  others,  were  generally  unsuccessful ; 
and  that  any  appeal  to  pains  and  penalties  for  such  a 
purpose  only  exposed  the  inherent  weakness  of  the 
cause  in  support  of  which  it  was  made,  learned  at  last 
while  differing  in  opinion,  to  practice,  if  not  mutual  re- 
spect, at  least  mutual  forbearance.  As  a  consequence 
religious  wars  waged  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining,  or 
suppressing  some  form  of  Christian  belief,  have  long 
ceased  to  embroil  with  each  other  the  Kingdoms  of  Eu- 
rope, or  even  to  affect  in  any  way  their  mutual  relations. 
There  now  neighbor  meets  neighbor  and  discusses  the 
relative  merits  of  their  respective  creeds,  without  utter- 
ing an  offensive  or  even  an  unkind  word.  It  is  much 
the  same  in  the  New  World.  Thus  the  plague  of  con- 
troversy as  it  once  raged,  has  (praised  be  God),  been 
stayed  at  last,  and,  let  us  hope, forever. 

So  far  as  religious  strife  is  concerned,  the  present 
compared  with  any  age  that  has  passed  since  the  six- 
teenth century  is,  therefore,  eminently  one  of  peace  and 
good  will ;  one  in  which  men  generally  recognize  the 


ii  Preface. 

good  traits  possessed  by  others,  and  accord  to  them 
their  full  rights  even  though  not  in  sympathy  with  their 
doctrinal  principles.  Nevertheless  the  spirit  of  contro- 
versy still  survives,  and  must  survive,  so  long  as  truth  is 
combated  by  error,  and  good  confronted  by  evil.  Sev- 
eral of  the  old  controversies  have,  indeed,  been  almost 
forgotten,  or  been  divested  of  the  interest  they  once 
possessed.  And  many  a  creed  in  which  its  first  profes- 
sors could  discern  no  flaw,  has  been  found  by  those,  who 
now  belong  to  the  same  sect,  to  be  more  or  less  incon- 
sistent with  reason  and  revelation.  As  a  symbol  it  no 
longer  expresses  their  belief,  and  sooner  or  latter  must 
be  recast,  in  order  to  adapt  it  to  views  far  too  humane, 
too  rational  and  too  Christian  for  its  authors  to  have  en- 
tertained, much  less  approved,  dominated  as  they  were 
by  polemical  prejudices  and  the  stern  dictates  of  section- 
al rancor.  Such  movements  may  tend  to  narrow  the  field 
of  controversy,  but  cannot  close  it  altogether;  until 
Christendom  shall  have  become  what  it  once  was,  and 
what  it  'ought  to  be  still,  one  fold  and  one  shepherd. 

Among  the  many  points  of  controversy,  which  have 
kept  Christendom  divided  into  two  principal  camps 
for  nearly  four  hundred  years,  is  that  which  forms  the 
subject  of  the  following  volume.  That  controversy,  like 
others  orio^inatinsf  at  the  same  time,  has  been  conducted 
by  many  in  a  way,  which  showed  that  they  were  more 
anxious  for  factional  ascendancy  than  for  the  triumph 
ot  divine  truth.  On  the  Catholic  side  of  the  discussion 
hardly  has  anything  been  written  in  English  beyond  a 
few  pages,  though  the  subject  has  been  exhaustively 
treated  by  Catholic  scholars.  But  these  scholars  gener- 
ally wrote  in  Latin,  their  works  being  intended  princi- 
pally for  the  use  of  ecclesiastical  students,  who,  when 
afterwards  charged  as  Pastors  with  thecareof  souls,  would 
thus  be  prepared  to  teach  the  Faithful  whatever  it  was 
necessary    to   know    regarding   the    Sacred    Scripture. 


Preface.  iif 

However,  once  the  Canon  of  Scripture  was  solemnly 
proclaimed,  the  unanimity  with  which  that  decision  was 
received  b)^  the  Catholic  laitv  made  it  unnecessary  to  ex- 
plain to  the  people  in  detail  the  reasons,  on  which  it  was 
based  ;  and  this  the  more  so,  as- all  were  aware  that  the 
contents  of  the  Bible  remained  substantially  unchanged. 
What  Catholics  found,  for  example,  in  the  Bible  of  the 
sixteenth  and  subsequent  centuries,  they  found  in  the 
Bible  of  the  fifteenth  and  preceding  centuries.  For  them 
therefore  little  instruction  on  the  subject  was  necessary^ 
beyond  what  they  already  actually  knew.  They  be- 
lieved in  the  Church.  The  Church  had  solemnly  ap- 
proved, as  a  canon  of  Scripture,  a  catalogue  of  sacred 
books  universally  used  by  her  in  her  divine  offices  al- 
ready for  ages.  In  what  she  had  thus  done,  she,  as  infalli- 
ble, could  be  no  more  mistaken  than  she  was  in  inculcat- 
ing the  existence  and  unity  of  God.  All  this  the  laity, 
as  well  as  their  teachers,  knew  full  well.  What  use  then 
in  wasting  time  on  the  xvhy  or  the  Jioiv  of  the  de- 
cision in  question?  That  decision  once  made,  stands 
forever.     And  that  is  all  there  is  about  it. 

It  was  far  otherwise  with  those,  who  at  the  time  had 
revolted  against  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Regard- 
ing the  Canon  of  Scripture  they  not  only  disagreed  with 
her  but  with  each  other,  and  their  followers  do  so  to 
this  day.  Yet  they  none  the  less  prepared  to  assail  her,^ 
as  well  on  account  of  the  Canon  she  had  approved,  as  on 
account  of  other  dogmas  she  retained  but  they  rejected. 
Volume  after  volume  was  issued  from  the  English  press, 
with  the  single  object  of  proving,  that  certain  books  in 
the  Bible,  which  the  Church  pronounced  authentic,  were 
not  only  human  but  doctrinally  and  historically  objec- 
tionable. So  unscrupulous  were  the  authors  of  those 
volumes  in  their  statements,  that  subsequent  writers  of 
the  same  school  felt  compelled,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  to 
correct  their  misstatements,  or  apologize  for  their  dishon- 


iv  Preface. 

■esty.  Unfortunately  the  work  of  one  of  these  unscrupu- 
lous censors,  a  member  of  the  anglican  episcopate,  has 
been  treated  on  the  continent  of  Europe  and  in  the 
United  States  as  possessed  of  the  highest  authority  on 
the  question  it  discusses,  its  arguments  being  regarded 
as  unassailable  and  its  conclusions  accepted  as  irrefrag- 
ible.  Yet,  a  learned  Professor  in  the  Universit}'  of 
Oxford,  long  ago, pointed  out  several  gross  and  appar- 
entl}'  deliberate  misstatements  in  the  work.  And  an- 
other dignitar}'  in  the  Anglican  communion,  within  the 
last  ten  or  eleven  3'ears,  warned  the  public  against  it, 
saying  it  "  must  be  read  with  great  caution." 

The  discussion,  which  has  for  its  subject  The  Canon  of 
scripture,  like  almost  ever}'  other,  which  the  present  has 
inherited  from  the  sixteenth  century,  has  been  recentlv 
conducted  in  a  spirit  far  different  from  that,  in  which  it 
originated,  or  from  that  which  marked  its  history  for 
ages  afterwards.  There  is  no  longer  as  there  once  was 
among  the  advocates  of  the  contracted  Canon,  a  dispo- 
sition to  deduce  from  the  writings  of  any  Father  other 
conclusions  than  such,  as  are  warranted  by  these  writ- 
ings considered  as  a  whole.  For  these  advocates  have 
discovered,  and  some  of  them  have  expressly  admitted, 
that  not  a  few  of  such  writings  are  characterized  by  in- 
consistencies not  to  say  contradictions.  In  fact,  the 
canon  which  an}-  individual  Father  followed  is,  as  the 
most  advanced  critics  now  hold,  not  to  be  ascertained 
so  much  from  isolated  passages  in  his  works  or  from  any 
catalogue  he  may  have  formulated,  as  from  the  manner 
in  which  he  may  have  referred  to  the  books  of  Script- 
ure, and  the  use  he  has  made  of  them  throughout  his 
writings.  Nor  will  the  reader  often  now  find  what  wa? 
once  so  common  among  the  advocates  of  the  same  con- 
tracted canon,  writers  urging  against  some  of  the  Old 
Testament  deutero-canonical  books  objections,  which, 
boomerang-like,  recoiling  on  their  projectors,  would  if 


Preface.  v 

admitted  have  been  fatal  to  books  in  their  own  canon, 
and  have  furnished  infidels  with  weapons  wherewith  to 
assail  revelation  in  general.  Writers  of  that  class 
warned  of  their  folly  by  critics  of  their  own  school  have 
become  all  but  extinct. 

There  were  several  considerations  which  induced  the 
writer  to  undertake  the  following-  work.  But  they  may 
all  be  reduced  to  two.  In  the  first  place  he  was  anxious 
to  counteract  the  effect,  which  the  almost  constant  pub- 
lication of  certain  English  books  in  Great  Britain  and 
this  country,  on  the  canon  of  Scripture,  might  have 
among  his  own  people.  It  is  well  known,  that  the  per- 
sistent attacks  of  infidels  on  the  views  held  by  Protes- 
tants regarding  their  Bible,  has  made  it  necessary  for  its 
defenders  to  vindicate,  as  best  they  may,  its  claim  to  the 
veneration  of  those  who  still  regard  it  as  the  only  infalli- 
ble rule  of  belief  and  practice.  The  volumes  that  have 
been  thus  written  in  its  defence  are  legion,  and  almost 
every  year  adds  to  their  number.  To  this  no  Christian 
could  object.  But  the  authors  of  some  of  these  volumes, 
not  content  with  attempting  to  establish  the  canonical 
character  of  the  books  retained  in  the  Protestant  Bible, 
go  farther  and  endeavor  to  convince  their  readers  that 
the  other  books  contained  in  the  Douay  Bible  are  un- 
scriptural,  or  as  they  generally  express  it,  apocryphal. 
Now  these  volumes  in  defence  of  the  Protestant  Bible, 
may  be  found  in  the  shelves  of  many  book-sellers  from 
whom  Catholics  are  accustomed  to  obtain  their  works  of 
instruction  and  devotion,  and  who  may  thus  be  intro- 
duced to  a  class  of  literature  antagonistic  to  divine  reve- 
lation. To  prepare  such  people  for  an  introduction  of 
that  kind  seemed  a  work  of  chanty  and  a  tribute  to  truth. 
This  single  reason  might  in  itself  be  an  apology  for  writ- 
ing a  work  on  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  But,  in  the 
second  place,  there  was  another  reason  which  led  to  the 
belief,  that  the  labor  devoted  to  such  a  work  might  not 


vi  Preface. 

be  labor  lost.  Several  of  the  attempts  made  of  late  by  em- 
inent Protestant  scholars  to  strengthen  or  restore  that  at- 
tachment to  the  Bible,  which  was  at  least  once  so  char- 
acteristic of  our  separated  brethren,  exhibited  on  their 
part  a  strong  suspicion, — the  result,  no  doubt,  of  candid 
and  independent  inquiry, — that  the  Protestant  canon  of 
the  Old  Testament,  after  all  that  had  been  written  in  its 
favor,  was  really  defective.  Indeed  it  has  been  actually 
admitted  at  least  in  one  instance,  that  that  canon  requires 
to  be  readjusted,  though  in  making  this  admission  the 
writer  seems  to  have  had  little  hope,  that  the  readjustment 
would  be  accomplished.  Another  confesses  that  the  au- 
thors of  that  canon  placed  thereon  books  which  should 
have  been  excluded  in  favor  of  others,  which  they  re- 
jected as  apocrypJial ;  while  several  other  critics  belonging 
to  the  same  school,  candidly  allow,  that  the  Church  at  the 
Council  of  Trent  admitted  to  the  canon  only  such  books, 
as  had  been  in  general  use  from  time  immemorial.  To  as- 
sist such  men  in  their  efforts  at  grasping  in  its  fulness 
the  written  revelation  which  God  has  made  to  mankind, 
seems  to  excuse,  if  it  cannot  justify,  the  time  spent  and 
the  labor  undergone  in  collecting  and  arranging  the 
materials  for  the  following  pages. 

In  the  composition  of  a  work  like  the  following,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  writers  belonging  to  different  ages  and 
different  countries  had  to  be  consulted.  Often  it  became 
necessary  also  to  reproduce  some  of  their  statements. 
But  it  will  be  observed,  and  perhaps  be  regretted  by  some 
that  though  the  authors  of  many  of  these  statements  did 
not  write  in  English,  the  extracts  made  from  their  works 
are  almost  invariably  presented  to  the  reader  in  that 
language  alone.  It  would  indeed  have  been  easy  to  in- 
sert among  the  foot  notes  or  in  an  appendix  all  such 
extracts,  exactly  as  they  appear  in  the  works  to  which 
they  belong.  But  to  have  done  so  would  have  resulted 
in  an  inconveniently  bulky   volume,  and  involved    the 


Preface.  \\\ 

proof-reader  in  serious  trouble,  situated  as  he  was  some 
five  hundred  miles  from  the  printers.  Besides,  as  in  the 
end,  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained,  but  much  certain  to 
be  lost  by  misrepresenting  what  had  been  written  bv 
others,  the  purpose  throughout  has  been  to  substitute 
an  honest  English  equivalent  for  all  such  extracts.  And 
it  is  hoped  the  reader  will  find,  that  in  no  instance 
has  that  purpose  been  forgotten.  Furthermore,  EngHsh 
readers  may  be  divided  into  two  classes, — those  who 
understand  other  languages  than  English  and  those  who 
do  not.  For  the  former  a  different  course  in  the  matter 
under  consideration,  from  that  which  has  been  followed, 
was  not  necessary,  as  many  of  them  are  supplied  with  the 
means  of  testing  the  accuracy  of  the  versions  referred 
to.  To  the  latter  nothing  has  been  lost  by  not  being 
supplied  with  the  originals  of  those  versions,  as  those 
originals  if  inserted  would  not  have  been  understood  by 
them. 

With  these  preliminary  remarks,  the  volume  itself  is 
respectfully  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  an  impartial 
and  intelligent  public. 

June  I2th,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


Bible — Meaning  of  the  word.  Canon — What  is  implied  thereby.  Names 
of  the  Sacred  Books.  Old  and  New  Testament  —What  is  meant  by 
the  distinction.  The  Catholic  Canon— Number  of  Books  contained 
therein.  The  Sacred  Books  divided  into  several  classes.  Other  books 
not  Sacred— their  origin  and  character.  Of  all  the  Books  whether 
really  or  only  professedly  parts  of  the  Bible,  as  referred  to  by  the 
Fathers,  a  quadruple  division  may  be  made.  Apocryphal — its  mean- 
ing, how  applied  by  early  Christian  writers.  Ecclesiastical  as  used 
by  Rufinus.  Canonical  and  Canonized — what  is  and  was  meant  there- 
by. Catalogues  of  the  Sacred  Books — their  origin  and  value.  Pro- 
tocanonical  and  Deuterocanonical  Books — the  import  and  origin  of  these 
terms — the  Deutero-canonical  Books  designated.  .  .  1 

CHAPTER  II. 

Jewish  Canon — Number  and  Names  of  Books  thereon.  Various  enumera- 
tions of  these  Books.  Jews  divided  their  Books  into  three  classes — 
the  number  in  the  first  class  constant,  that  in  each  of  the  other  two 
classes  variable,  though  at  least  in  recent  times  the  contents  of  their 
Bible  always  the  same — how  classified  by  the  author  of  Ecclesiasti- 
cus  —how  by  our  Lord  -how  by  Josephus.  The  relation  of  Esdras  tO' 
the  Canon  as  described  in  the  Scriptures— as  alleged  by  the  Jews 
themselves.  The  earliest  reference  to  the  point  found  in  apocryphal 
iv  Esdras.  The  statement  in  iv  Esdras  considered.  Degree  of 
credit  given  to  that  statement  by  early  Christian  writers.  The 
Scriptures  not  destroyed  in  the  Babylonian  captivity.  .  15 

CHAPTER  III. 

Origin  of  their  Canon  as  described  by  the  Jews.  The  Talmud — its  refer- 
ence to  the  formation  of  the  Canon.  The  College  of  Esdras.  The 
Sanhedrim  or  Great  Synagogue.  Its  existence  denied  for  various 
reasons.  Josephus  on  the  subject.  Opinions  of  Christian  writers. 
Why  the  Jewish  Canon  could  not  have  been  the  work  of  Esdras.  32 


X  Contents. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Difference  of  opinion  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  writers  regarding 
the  relation  of  Esdras  to  the  Canon.  Difficulties  connected  with  the 
subject.  Theories  advocated  by  Catholic  writers  in  reference  to  it — 
Genebrard,  Serarius,  Richard  Simon.  Huet,  Frassen,  Movers,  Netteler, 
Dauko.  Addis  and  Arnold.  Theories  maintained  by  Protestant  writers, 
on  the  same  subject.  Prideaux  and  Davidson.  Various  reasons 
for  believing  that  Esdras  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
Canon  of  Scripture.  ......  50 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  assembly  at  Jamnia.     Debate  thereat  on  the  Canon.     Influence  of  the 
debate  on  Protestant  opinion.     Catholic  behef  not  affected  thereby, 
but  expressed  mainlj^  in  three  forms.     The  Septuagint  or   Alexan- 
drine version.     Its  origin,  circulation  and  authority — In  general  use 
outside   Palestine,   but  read  even   in   the  Synagogue   at  Jerusalem. 
Jerusalem   a  centre   of   unity  for  Jews  throughout  the  world.     The 
Temple  of  Leontopolis — The  Jews  who  worshipped  there  recognized  as 
orthodox  at  Jerusalem,  while  their  Bible  contained  the  Deutero  Books. 
That  same  Bible  delivered  by  t)ie  Apostles  to  the  first  Christians.     It, 
or   versions  of  it  containing  the  deutero  books,  the  only  Bible  in  the 
hands  of  Christians  until  1536.    The  Latin  Vulgate,  its  origin.    It  also 
contained  the  Deutero  books  according  to  Protestant  testimony.     Two 
points  settled      The  bond  of  union  between  the  Palestinian  and  Hel- 
lenistic Jews..  .......         68 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  credit  of  formulating  a  canon  due  more  to  Jeremias  and  Nehemias 
than  to  Esdras.  Its  real  author  the  Jewish  high  Priest.  This 
proved  by  the  Scriptures,  the  testimony  of  Josephus,  and  by  the 
course  which  Jewish  writers  supposed  was  adopted  in  translating  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Greek.  .....         87 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Temple  at  Garizim  contrasted  with  that  at  Leontopolis.  The  former  exe- 
crated, the  latter  at  least  tolerated  by  the  Palestinian  Jews.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  Hebrew  Theocracy  the  high  Priests  at  Jerusalem  guLity 
of  awful  crimes.  Those  at  Leontopolis  charged  with  no  disorders. 
Probable  effect  of  the  contrast  on  pious  Jews.  Reasons  for  believ- 
ing that  the  books  used  by  the  Egyptian  Jews  were  adopted  by  those 
of  Palestine.  A  canon  though  incomplete  in  existence  in  the  time  of 
Moses,  gradually  enlarged  by  the  high  Priest.  Interference  of  the 
civil  power  with  the  high  Priest.     The  appointment  to  that  ofSce  of 


Contents.  xi 

raeu  without  an}'  title  to  it.  As  ;i  consequence  the  canon  becomes 
vajjue  and  confused  among  the  Palestinian  Jews  soon  after  the  be- 
ginning- of  the  Christian  era.  Until  that  period  the  books  received  by 
the  Hellenists  also  received  by  the  Palestinians.  Then  only  did  the 
Rabbins  decide  to  mutilate  their  canon  by  excluding  therefrom  certain 
books  all  along  used  not  only  by  the  Hellenists,  but  by  the  Palestinians.    1 06 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  decision  reached  at  Jamnia  not  final.  Tlie  usurpers  of  the  authority 
possessed  alone  by  the  high  Priest  of  the  old,  but  already  transferred 
to  the  High  Priests  of  the  new  Dispensation,  still  in  doubt  about  their 
canon.  This  proved  by  the  testimony  of  Melito,  Justin  Martyr  and 
others.  The  Jews  without  a  fixed  canon  from  the  Apostolic  age  until 
the  fifth  century,  when  they  at  last  agreed  on  one  which  however 
was  false.  The  uncertainty  among  the  Jews  about  the  canon  in- 
creased by  their  efforts  at  meeting  the  arguments  of  Christians.  The 
attempt  of  the  Rabbins  at  curtailing  the  canon  more  successful 
than  that  of  the  Protestant  Doctors.  Aquila,  Theodotion.  and  Sym- 
machus.  ........     125 

CHAPTER  IX. 
The  Septuagint  a  formidable  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  Christians  when 
arguing  with  Jews.  The  latter  charged  with  attempting  to  cor- 
rupt it.  What  happened  the  Book  of  Esther.  The  Jewish  Canon 
not  now  what  it  was  in  the  time  of  Christ.  The  general  theory  ad- 
vocatad  by  Protestants  on  this  subject.  Luther  tossing  Esther  into 
the  P:ibe.  Contradictory  propositions  must  be  maintained  by  all 
Christians  who  hold  that  the  true  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  is  to  be 
found  only  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.      .  .  .  .  .141 

CHAPTER  X. 
A  Second  Theory  proposed  on  the  same  subject  Ijy  Catholic  critics.  Was 
there  really  an  Esdrine  Canon,  not  closed  however  but  by  the  author- 
ity of  Christ  and  his  Apostles?  Testimony  of  the  Manuscripts.  In- 
termixture of  Proto  and  Deutero  books.  Septuagint  when  delivered 
to  the  Church  contained  the  Deutero  books.  Events  in  the  early 
Christian  Church  at  Jerusalem.  Primitive  sectarists  though  they  re- 
pudiated some  of  the  Proto  Books,  never  objected  to  the  Deutero. 
These  considerations  fatal  to  the  tlieory  in  question.  .  .       148 

CH.\PTER  Xr. 
A  Third  Theory  defended  by  Catljolic  writor?.    Were  there  two  Canons— 
A  Palestinian    or  Esdrine,  and  an  Alp.vandrine— the  former  the  work 
•  of   Esdras  and   Nehemias  -  restricted   to   Palestine   and   not   closed 


xii  Contents. 

until  the  time  of  the  Apostles.  Thelatter  followed  outside  of  Pales- 
tine and  containing  the  Deutero  as  well  as  the  Proto  hooks  ?  This 
theory  untenable  on  account  of  the  communion  maintained  between 
the  Palestinian  and  Hellenistic  Jews.  It  is  besides  contradicted  by 
the  constitution  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth.  Statement  of 
Bonfrere.  The  canon  now  used  by  the  Jews  quite  different  from  the 
one  they  had  in  times  immediately  preceding  the  Christian  era.  159 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Flavius  Josephus— his  character  and  writings.  Extract  therefrom. 
Value  of  this  e.xtract  in  determinimg  the  contents  of  the  Hebrew 
canon.  Critics  irrespective  of  creed  unable  to  agree  in  deciding  what 
books  now  in  the  .lewish  canon  found  a  place  among  tlie  thirteen  his- 
torical books,  and  four  of  hymns  and  counsels  mentioned  by  Josephus. 
All  the  books  on  the  existing  Jewish  Canon  not  made  use  of  by 
Josephus  in  his  writings.  Of  other  books  not  on  that  canon  he  has 
copied  portions.  For  example  deutero  parts  of  Esther,  Esdras  III  and 
Machabees.  The  Catholic  and  Protestant  Esther  contrasted.  Vicissi- 
tudes through  which  the  book  of  Esther  has  passed.  These  vicissi- 
tudes accounted  for.  .  .  .  .       165- 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Statement  of  Josephus  further  discussed.  Succession  and  mission  of  the 
Prophets.  Flavian  •'  succession  of  Prophets."  Whence  did  Josephus 
derive  his  information  on  the  subject?  According  to  his  own  state- 
ments and  those  of  the  Scripture  there  were  several  well  known 
prophets  between  the  time  of  Artaxexes  and  his  own  age.  Josephus 
contradicted  by  himself— by  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament- by 
Philo  Judacns  and  by  the  authors  of  the  Talmud.  Various  grades  of 
propliecy.  Meaning  of  the  Flavian  "  succession  of  prophets  "  uncer- 
tain. Interpreted  in  one  way  these  words  not  inconsistent  with  the 
divine  origin  claimed  for  the  Deutero  books.  Interpreted  otherwise 
asasourceof  testimony  they  are  of  little  account.  And  why.  Rab- 
bins and  Reformers  well  paired.         .  .  .  .  .180 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  Canon  of  the  Schismatics.  Wliat  is  meant  by  a  Schismatic.  The 
Syrians  excepted,  all  Christians  received  at  first  the  Scpttiagint  or  a 
version  of  it,  and  with  it  the  Deutero  books.  These  books  ever  used 
by  the  Roman  See.  As  to  them  never  any  difference  between  Latins 
and  Greeks.  The  Canon  at  the  Council  in  Trnllo  and  the  Council  of 
Florence.  Joasaph  II  Schismatical  patriarch  of  Constantinople  sends 
a  deacon  to  Wittenberg.  Melanchthon's  letter  to  the  patriarch.  Corres- 
pondence between  the  TUbingen  divines  and  Jeremias  II,  schismatical 


Contents.  \iii 

patriarch  of  Constantinople.      Four  folio  volumes  of  Lutheran  ser- 
mons fail  to  make  any  impression  on  the  obdurate  Greeks.        .       .       106 

CHAPTER  XV. 

•Cyril  Lucar.  His  birth  and  education — visits  (Jenoa — is  introduced  to 
Protestant  society — is  ordained— comes  in  contact  with  the  Jesuits — 
is  made  patriarch  of  Alexandria  -  favors  Calvinism — opens  a  corres- 
pondence with  leading  Protestants — has  several  students  (among 
them  Metrophanes  Critopulus)  educated  in  Protestant  institutions — 
is  promoted  to  the  Patriarchal  See  of  Constantinople — ably  sustained 
there  by  the  English,  Dutch,  and  Swedish  ambassadors— troubled  by 
the  Jesuits  but  contrives  to  get  rid  of  them — writes  a  confession  of 
faith — is  suspected  of  high  treason— repeatedly  degraded  and  re- 
stored— is  at  last  arrested  and  strangled,  his  dead  bod}'  being  thrown 
into  the  sea — soon  after  his  death  anathematized  in  a  Greek  Synod  as 
a  Lutheran.  Metrophanes  Critopulus  writes  a  confession  of  faith — is 
promoted  to  the  patriarchal  See  of  Alexandria,  and  unites  with  other 
schismatical  dignitaries  in  blasting  with  censure  the  memorj'  of  his 
unfortunate  patron — Cyril  Lucar.  The  canon  of  Scripture  advocated 
by  Cyril  and  Metrophanes.  Decrees  on  the  subject  by  several  councils 
composed  of  Greek  schismatics,  not  at  all  what  Cyril's  protestant 
patrons  expected.         .......      205 

CHAPTER    XVL 

Source  of  Russian  Ciiristianity.  SS.  Cyril  and  Methodius.  Invention  of 
the  Slavonic  alphabet.  Slavonic  version  of  the  Scripture.  It  con- 
tained the  Deutero  books,  the  Septuagint  or  Vulgate  being  the  stand- 
ard after  which  it  was  modelled.  The  progress  of  Christianity  slow 
among  the  Russians  until  the  end  of  the  tenth  centur}-.  Vladimir, 
their  ruler  is  baptized.  With  the  aid  of  missionaries  from  Constan- 
tinople he  accomplishes  the  conversion  of  his  subjects.  The  Russian 
church  at  its  creation  in  communion  with  Rome.  Homage  done  to 
the  Pope  by  Vladimir's  grandson  for  his  kingdom.  The  council  of 
Florence.  The  Russian  church  represented  thereat.  The  act  of 
union  adopted  then  by  Latins  and  Greeks  subsequently  rejected  by 
the  latter.  Sad  picture  presented  under  the  Sultan  by  the  proud 
prelates  who  violated  the  compact  they  had  solemnly  signed  at  Flor- 
ence. The  act  of  union  also  repudiated  by  the  Russians.  Dismal 
condition  of  the  Russian  hierarchy  under  the  Czars.  The  Greeks  had 
ruptured  the  union  which  bound  them  to  Rome.  The  Russians  in  turn 
broke  loose  ^''■om  Constantinople.     Present  state  of  religion  in  Russia.  217 

CHAPTER   XVIL 
Russian  divines  on  the   Canon.      Peter  Mogila — his   "  Exposition   of  the 


XIV  •  Contents. 

Faith  of  the  Russian  Church."  George  Konissky — liis  treatise  "  On 
the  duty  of  Parish  Priests."  Philaret-his  "Catechism."  State- 
ments by  Protestant  and  Catholic  writers.  Hody  on  the  "  Muscovite 
Bible."  Reuss  on  "the  Greek  Bible  printed  at  Moscow  in  1821." 
Comely  on  "  Russian  Bibles  edited  and  approved  by  the  Synod  of  St. 
Petersburg  in  1876."  A  Russian  Bible  printed  in  1882  at  St.  Peters- 
burg with  the  benediction  of  "  the  Most  Ploly  Orthodox  Synod." 
The  Non-Jurors  of  Great  Britain  solicit  recognition  by  the  Schismat- 
ical  Greek,  and  Russian  churches.  By  the  former  they  are  required 
to  surrender  at  discretion.  Xegotiations  with  the  latter  finally  arrest- 
ed by  the  death  of  Peter  the  Great.  Similar  efforts  recently  made 
by  British  and  American  Episcopalians.  What  followed.  Bollinger 
invites  a  conference  to  Bonn.  It  is  attended  by  a  few  ministers  and 
Russo-Greeks,  each  one  representing  nobody  but  himself.  The 
points  discussed  thereat.  What  came  of  it.  A  second  Bonn  Confer- 
ence. Dollingerites  and  Anglicans  ready  to  barter  away  their  creed. 
The  Russo-Greeks  instead  of  meeting  the  others  half  way  haughtily 
decline  to  make  the  smallest  concession.  As  to  the  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  the  agreement  reached  at  Bonn  when  fairly  interpreted 
favors  the  canomcity  of  the  Deutero  books.  .  .  .       22S 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  among  the  other  Schismatical  Commu- 
nities. The  Nestorians.  The  Abyssinians.  The  Armenians.  The 
Copts  and  others  of  Egypt.  Tne  Melchites.  The  Jacobites,  etc. 
Renaudot  on  the  question.  Admissions  of  Walton,  Wright,  Welhau- 
sen,  and  Marsh.  The  Deutero  books  canonical,  because  the  schismat- 
ics who  so  receive  them,  must  have  been  taught  to  believe  this  by 
those  who  whether  Apostles  or  successors  of  the  Apostles  were  the 
first  to  deHver  to  them  the  word  of  God.        ....       250 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Tlie  Canon  among  the  Sects.  Meaning  of  Sect.  ,  The  Canon  among  the 
Jewish  Sects.  Samaritans,  Sadducees,  Pharisees.  The  Canon  among 
the  Christian  Sects  of  the  first  century— Simon  Magus,  Saturninus, 
Basilides,  Cerinthus,  Ebion.  The  Canon  among  the  sects  of  the  sec- 
ond century — Elcesaeus,  Cerdo,  Marcion,  Tat-ian,  Montanus,  Apelles. 
The  Canon  among  the  sects  of  the  third  century— Manes,  Tertullian, 
Simonians,  Basilidians,  Marcionites,  Maniciieans,  Nazarites,  Valen- 
tinians,  Ebionites.  Cataphrygians,  Alogians.  Gnostics,  etc.  The  Canon 
among  the  sects  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries— Arians,  Pelagians, 
Eunomians,  Anomeeans,  Vigilantius.  The  Canon  among  the  sects 
from  the  sixth  to  the  tenth  century  During  this  period  the  spirit 
of  error  was  so  occupied  with  other  innovations,  that  the  canon  of 


Contents.  xv 

Scripture  escaped  iis  notice.  The  Canon  among  the  sects  of  the 
eleventh  century — Bosroniilists,  Stephen  and  Lisosius.  The  Canon 
among  the  sects  of  the  twelftli  century — Albigenses  and  Cathari, 
"Waldensians.  The  Canon  among  the  sects  of  the  thirteenth  century 
— Abbot  Joachim,  Albigensians  still  engaged  in  manufacturing  a  new 
Canon.  .  .  .    •         .  .  .  .       264 

CHAPTER  XX. 

The  Canon  among  tlie  sects  from  the  fourteenth  to  the  sixteenth 
century.  John  Wyckliile — effects  of  his  errors — ignorant  of  Greek  or 
Hebrew.  His  canon  of  Scripture  doubtful.  So  also  is  the  English 
translation  of  the  Scripture  he  is  reported  to  have  written.  The 
point  discussed  by  Davidson,  mentioned  in  Dublin  Review,  considered  in 
Book  of  Days,  referred  to  by  Hallam,  treated  b}-  Marsh,  seriously 
doubted  by  Stevenson.  The  Canon  among  the  sects  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  Herman  Ruissvich.  The  Canon  among  the  sects  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  A  horde  of  heretics.  The  foremost  Martin 
Luther.  His  surcmary  rejection  of  many  books  belonging  to  the  Old 
and  Xew  Testaments.  Davidson's  estimate  of  Martin's  argument 
against  the  Apocalypse.  Martin  Chemnitz,  Johann  Brentz,  the  Cen- 
turiators  of  Magdeburg  though  favorable  to  Luther's  views,  defend 
the  Apocalypse.  Luiher,  Calvin,  Grotius,  Scaliger,  Salmasius,  Sem- 
ler,  Bolten,  Michaehs  make  sad  havoc  of  the  Canon.  Vigorous  pro- 
tests from  conservative  Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics  against  the 
sacrilegious  treatment  of  that  venerable  instrument.  .  .275 

CHAPTER  XXL 

Merits  of  Luther's  Bible.  'Tis  condemned  by  Emser.  Luther's  abuse  of 
his  censor.  Luther's  Bible  also  severely  censured  by  his  fellow  reform- 
ers. Its  deliberate  perversions  of  the  plain  sense  contained  in  the 
original.  These  perversions  perpetrated  to  justify  Luther's  errors. 
Examples  of  such  perversions.  Calvin's  Bible  condemned  by  Dum- 
oulin,  a  French  Calvinistic  minister.  (Ecolampadius'  pronounced 
impious  by  Beza  the  successor  of  Calvin.  Beza's  Latin  New  Testa- 
ment denounced  by  Walton,  Dumoulin,  and  MacKnight.  English 
Protestant  Bibles.  Tyndale's  Bible  modelled  after  Luther's.  Cover 
dale's  "  Bible  .  .  .  faithfully  and  truly  translated "  as  its  author 
boasted  "  out  of  Douche  and  Latin."  Matthew's  Bible,  simply  a  re- 
vision of  Tyndale's  as  far  as  the  latter  went,  the  remainder  of  its  Old 
Testament  being  the  work  of  John  Rogers  and  probably  Coverdale. 
Taverner's  Bible  no  more  than  Matthew's  corrected.  Cranmer's 
Bible  simply  a  revision  of  the  Bible  by  Tyiidale  and  Rogers.  The 
Geneva  or  Breeches  Bible  no  more  than  a  revision  of  Cranmer's  Bible. 


xvi  Contents. 

The  Bishop's  Bible  but  another  revision  of  Cranmer's  Bible.  In  all 
these  Bibles  the  Deutero  Books,  either  by  the  name  given  them  or  the 
position  assigned  thorn  in  the  Old  Testament,  treated  as  inferior 
to  the  rest.      .......  291 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

The  English  Protestant  Bibles  condemned  by  the  best  English  Protestant 
scholars.  A  new  version  ordered  by  King  James  I.  It  is  completed 
in  161 1,  is  styled  "  the  authorized  version."  Its  character — the  result 
of  a  compromise  between  the  two  factions  of  which  the  translators 
were  composed.  But  both  agreed  so  to  pervert  the  sense  of  the  orig- 
inal that  Catholics  would  appear  idolaters.  The  way  this  was  accom- 
pUshed.  Perverse  and  shameless  use  of  the  word  imu'ge  by  King 
James'  scholars.  ....... 

CHAPTER   XXIII.  308 

The  latest  Revisers  of  "  the  authorized  version  "  loath  to  renounce  the  ad- 
vantage so  basely  acquired  by  the  anti-scriptural  use  of  the  word  image. 
Jacob's  Slieol.  The  New  Testament  of  "  the  authorized  version " 
mainly  Martin  Luther's.  "  Diana  of  the  Ephesiaus'.  Perversion  of  Mat. 
xix.  11.  Luther's  sermon  on  Marriage  suggests  a  twist  of  I.  Cor.  vii.  9. 
''  The  use  of  the  cup  "  enjoined  by  perverting  the  meeting  of  I.  Cor.  xi. 
27.  A  belief  in  Purgatory  prevented  by  corrupting  Luke  I.  72.  King 
James'  Translators  while  they  had  one  eye  on  the  original,  with  the 
other  never  lost  sight  of  the  Pope.  Hebrews  x.  38  falsified  to  prove 
"  once  just,  always  just."  Adam  Clarke's  remark  thereon.  Perver- 
sion of  II.  Tim.  iii.  16.  Protestant  preference  for  Old  Testament 
names.  Silly  attempt  of  the  Reformers  to  perpetuate  the  Hebrew 
vocalization  df  Old  Testament  names— while  the  Hebrews  them- 
selves  wJien  writing  these  names  for  otlier  -than  Hebrew  scholars, 
adapt  tlieiii  to  the  vocalization  of  their   readers.       .  .  321 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Nomenclature  of  "  the  autJiorized  Version  "  less  Hebraic  than  that  of  some 
German  reformers.  The  Revisers  of  that  version  try  to  find  out  the 
system  of  transliteration  followed  by  the  translators.  In  vain,  for 
apart  from  a  settled  purpose  to  make  the  Bible  endorse  protestant  and 
condemn  Catholic  principles  the  translators  had  no  system.  Their 
versatility  in  writing  names.  The  two  factions  engaged  in  swapping 
words  and  passages.  Tlieir  use  or  rather  abuse  of  the  words  diakonos 
presbuteros  and  episcopos.  Scriptural  meaning  of  these  terms — The 
Anglo-Saxon  priost,  the  Latin  sacerdos,  the  Greek  Mereus  and  the 
Hebrew  cohen  svnonvmous.      Not  however,   until  the  close  of  the 


Contents.  xvii 

second  century  was  the  Cliristiun  -priest  called  a  sacerdos  among  the 
li-Atins  or  &  hiereus  among  the  Greeks.  Reason  for  the  discipline. 
Priest  implies  essentially  a  sacrificer.  Applied  to  those  generally  re- 
cognized as  ministers,  it  is  unappropriate,  misleading,  fraudulent  and 
false.  ........       341 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

A  Reviewer  of  the  revised  version  of  the  New  Testament,  who  assisted 
in  that  work,  reviewed.  "  A  vast  multitude  of  changes  made  in  "  the 
autliorized  version."  Specimens  of  these  changes.  "  The  authorized 
version"  declared  by  a  Reviser  erroneous,  absurd,"  etc.,  though  the 
Revisers  as  a  bodj'  find  language  inadequate  to  depict  the  beauties  of 
the  volume.  The  translators  had  ample  means  for  writing  a  faithful 
version.  But  that  they  did  not  propose  doing.  The  Revisers  like  the 
Translators  composed  of  two  factions.  The  result  also  a  compromise. 
Many  archaic  words  and  uugrammatical  expressions  allowed  to  re- 
remain.  Public  expectation  of  the  coming  revision  aroused  to  the 
higliest  pitch  wherever  the  English  language  was  spoken,  but  only  to 
collapse  under  bitter  disappointment.  Book-sellers  and  pu"blishers 
for  a  while  reap  a  rich  harvest.  But  a  reaction  soon  set  in.  The 
market  became  glutted — Retailers  found  at  last  copies  could  not  be 
sold  at  any  price.  No  demand  for  tlie  revised  version  of  the  Old 
Testament  when  it  appeared.  Use  made  of  the  Revision.  A  question 
of  Profit  and  Loss.      .......       365 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

The  Anglo  Catliolic  Version,  commonly  called  the  Douay  Bible.  An  ac- 
count of  it.  Its  basis  the  vulgate,  a  copy  highly  esteemed  by  Pro- 
testant scholars.  The  literary  qualifications  of  those  to  whom  Eng- 
lish readers  owe  the  Douay  Bible.  The  version  commended  by 
Protestant  critics  for  "  its  scrupulous  accuracy  and  fidelity."  Fault 
found  with  it  on  account  of  its  Hebraisms.  Latinisms  and  Grascisms. 
This  accounted  for.  Wherever  the  sense  of  the  original  seemed  doubtful 
the  version  strictly  literal.  An  example  of  this.  Striking  contrast 
between  the  judgment  of  Hallam  and  that  of  the  Revisers  regarding 
the  language  of  the  "  authorized  Version."  In  the  case  of  words 
whose  meaning  in  the  original  seemed  obscure  the  authors  of  the 
Douay  simply  transcribed  such  often  without  any  change  whatever. 
Sindon  cited  as  an  illustration  of  this.  Tliough  honored  with  the 
sanction  of  not  a  single  Bishop  the  Douay  Version  deservedly  re- 
garded in  its  day  as  the  most  valuable  contribution  then  made  to  Eng- 
lish Catholic  literature.  ......       380 


xviii  Contents. 

chaptp:r  XXVII. 

A  brief  account  of  the  Revisions  and  editions  through  which  the  Douay 
Version  passed  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Objectionable  notes  in 
the  Douay  Version.  McNaraara's  unfortunate  speculation.  Nary's 
Version  of  the  Vulgate  j^ew  Testament.  Witham's  revision  of  the 
same.  Challoner's  labors  on  the  Douay  Version.  Keurick  and  New- 
man on  changes  made  in  the  language  of  the  Douay  Version  by  Chal- 
loner.     Lingard's  Translation  of  the  four  Gospels.  .  .       399 

CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

What  has  been  done  by  Catholics  for  the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures  in 
the  United  States.  Revisions  and  editions  of  the  Douay  Bible  there. 
McNamara's  edition  of  the  Douay  Bible  re-issued  under  Protestant 
auspices  at  New  York.  Object  and  failure  of  the  speculation.  French, 
German  and  Spanish  Catholic  Versions  of  the  Vulgate  published  in 
the  United  States  under  Episcopal  sanction.  The  same  versions  with  a 
Cathohc  Portuguese  one  but  all  mutilated  or  moditied  in  some  way 
edited  by  the  American  bible  society.  An  attempt  to  force  into  cir- 
culation among  Catholics  a  Lutheran  bible  by  inserting  therein  the 
title  page  of  a  German  Catholic  Bible.  Similar  tricks  employed  by 
the  Protestant  bible  societies  in  the  Old  as  well  as  the  New  world  to 
shove  among  Catholics  counterfeits  of  God's  Holy  Word.  Some 
steitistics  of  sales  of  Catholic  Bibles  in  the  United  States.  .       413- 

CHAPTER   XXIX. 

Since  types  were  substituted  for  pens,  Bibles  multiplied  by  the  Chu  rch  not 
only  in  English  but  in  all  languages  spoken  by  Christian  nations. 
German  Catholic  Bibles,  French  Catholic  Bibles,  Italian  Catholic 
Bibles,  Spanish  Catholic  Bibles,  Portuguese  Catholic  Bibles,  Flemish 
Catholic  Bibles,  Polish  Catholic  Bibles,  Bohemian  Catholic  Bibles, 
Slavonian  Catholic  Bibles,  Hungarian  Catholic  Bibles,  Syriac  Catholic 
Bibles,  Arabic  Catholic  Bibles,  Egyptian  Catholic  Bibles,  Armenian 
Catholic  Bibles.  Portions  of  the  Catholic  Old  and  New  Testament 
translated  into  some  of  the  languages  and  dialects  spoken  by  the 
aborigines  of  the  New  World.  Under  the  sanction  and  blessing  of  the 
Church,  Greek  and  Latin  Versions  of  the  Scriptures  collated  corrected 
and  copied  again  and  again.  Look  at  those  venerable  and  precious 
manuscripts  which  we  still  possess.  Well  these  are  generally  the 
productions  of  a  class  of  men,  for  whom  modern  sciolists  have  no  bet- 
ter name  than  that  cf  "  Lazy  Monks."  ....       435 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
The   general   circulation  'A  the   Scriptures   before   the  invention  of  the 


Contents.  xix 

printing  press  impossible  for  two  reasons — prevalent  illiteracy  arising 
from  irruptions  of  the  Barbarians  ;  (examples  of  this  illiteracy),  and 
the  enormous  expense  of  books  ;  (instances  of  this) — Yet  not  only  the 
existence  but  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  well  known  all  along  through 
the  public  readings  and  explanations  of  the  Epistles  and  Gospels  in 
the  Churches.  Maitland's  exposure  of  D'Aubigne's  and  Milner's 
falsehoods  about  Luther's  pretended  discoverj^  of  the  Bible.  Yet  the 
falsehood  repeatedly  edited  by  D'Aubigne's  Protestant  admirers,  while 
allowing  Maitland's  masterly  refutation  to  go  out  of  print.  This,  how- 
ever, the-  uniform  policy  of  the  party  ever  since  it  was  organized  by 
Luther.  Latin  very  generally  understood  in  Western  Christendom  un- 
til the  lime  of  Luther.  With  it  as  a  means  of  access  to  the  V^ilgate, 
that  sacred  volume  could  not  have  been  generally  unknown.  For  long 
after  the  time  of  Luther  Latin  was  the  usual  channel  through  which 
even  Protestant  scholars  expressed  their  thoughts.  A  list  of  such 
scholars.  A  practical  knowledge  of  Latin  possessed  occasionally 
even  by  ladies  and  laborers.  .....       446 

CHAPTER  XXXL 

The  Inroduction  of  the  Bible  to  England  coeval  with  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  in  that  country.  Statement  of  Gildas.  Testimony  of  Venerable 
Bede.  Usher  on  the  point.  Tradition  regarding  Venerable  Bcde  Alcuin 
and  King  Alfred.  An  early  English  Psalter.  Cuthbert's  Evangelistariura. 
The  Rush  worth  Gospels.  The  Heptateuch  of  Aelfnc,  Archl.isliop  of 
Canterbury.  The  Deutero  Books  of  the  Old  Testament  in  use.  Anglo 
Saxon  Psalters  and  Gospels  preserved  in  British  Museum  and  else- 
where, some  of  them  as  late  as  the  twelfth  century.  The  counterfeit 
Versions  attributed  to  Wyckliffe  and  his  associates  well  preserved. 
The  why  of  this  easily  explained.  But  from  the  twelfth  century  to 
the  year  ]  582,  the  date  of  the  Douay  Version  not  a  single  scrap  of 
any  English  Version  by  any  Catholic  pen  remains.  The  why  in  this  case 
furnished  by  the  wholesale  destruction  to  which  every  relic  of  Catholic 
antiquity  in  England  was  doomed  by  Henry  VIII  and  his  rapacious  in- 
quisitors. Several  instances  of  this  awful  sacrilege  cited  on  the  au- 
thority of  Protestant  writers,  some  of  whom  profited  by  it.  .       462 

CHAPTER  XXXIL 

The  sacred  Scriptures  profoundly  esteemed  in  England  while  the  country 
remained  Catholic.  A  dilemma  for  Hartwell  Home  and  all  of  his  school. 
His  assertion  about  a  chasm  during  which  the  Scriptures  were  buried 
in  oblivion  contradicted  by  More,  Cranmer,  Fox  and  Common  Sense. 
Even  m  the  worst  of  times  while  England  remained  Catholic  its 
people  possessed  Versions  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  Histories  of  the 


XX  Contents. 

Sacred  Passion,  Psalters  and  numerous  ascetic  books.  Various  in- 
stances of  the  profound  esteem  with  which  the  divine  Scriptuies  were 
regarded  in  Catholic  England.  Maitland  on  this  subject.  Catholic 
England  adorned  the  Bible  as  an  unsullied  Bride.  Protestant  England 
has  treated  it  as  a  common  Harlot.  ....       473 

CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

If  after  the  tenth  century  no  translation  of  tlie  Bible  was  made  for  a  long 
time  in  England ;  that  accounted  for  by  the  inroads  of  the  Danes, 
the  Norman  Conquest,  the  extinction  of  the  Saxon  language  and  the 
slow  growth  of  a  new  one.  But  above  all  by  the  general  destruc- 
tion of  Catholic  writings  at  the  reformation.  Yet  Home's  imaginary 
chasm  easily  filled  by  what  must  have  been  the  literary  labors  of  such 
scholars  as  Lanf  ranc,  Anselm,  Langton,  Grosseteste,  John  of  Salisbury, 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  etc.  Home's  charge  that  the  general  reading  of 
the  Scriptures  was  prohibited  b}'  "  the  Papal  See  "  utterly  groundless. 
Innocent  III  and  the  bible  readers  of  Metz.  Frederic  Von  Hurler's 
view  of  the  case.  Innocent  III  and  tlie  Albigensians.  The  PontifE's 
polic}'  on  that  occasion  vindicated.  Decree  by  the  Council  of  Toulouse 
regarding  the  Scriptures.  Action  on  the  same  subject  b_y  the  Council 
of  Tarragona  and  the  Synod  of  Oxford  under  Tliomas  Arundel.  Eng- 
lish Catholics  never  forbidden  to  read  faithful  versions  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. Prohibitory  rules  on  the  subject  temporary,  local  and  the  result 
of  exceptional  circumstances.  Practice  of  the  Apostles  regarding  the 
matter.  Autocrats  of  the  Common  Scliools.  Millions  spent  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  Protestant  bibles,  vvhicli  the  recipients  generally  utilize  for 
all  siicli  purposes  as  those  to  vvliich  waste  paper  is  applied.  .       483 

CHAPTER   XXXIV. 

Bible  Societies.  TJieir  origin  and  purposes.  Opposed  by  several  Anglican 
Bishops,  and  by  Bretschneider  with  several  other  leading  German 
Protestants,  but  encouraged  by  Leander  Van  Ess,  a  German  Priest. 
The  Societies  condemned  by  several  Popes.  Engaged  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  counterfeits  of  Catholic  Bibles.  Novel  method  of  translating 
the  Scriptures  into  foreign  languages.  Character  of  these  translations. 
The  use  made  of  them.  Position  assigned  the  Deutero  Old  Testament 
books  in  early  Protestant  bibles  offensive  to  English  dissenters,  not  so 
to  continental  Protestants.  Karl  Hildebrand  Canstein's  bibles  an  oc- 
casion of  scandal  to  the  Kirk  O'Scotland.  Strife  among  the  Bretliren. 
The  sixteen  j-ears'  Apocryphal  war.  A  free  for  all  fight  in  London, 
Glasgow,  Edinburgh.  Paris,  Saltzburg,  Berlin.  Stockholm  and  Peters- 
burgh.  Van  Ess  and  tlie  Deutero  books  sacrificed  as  a  peace  offering 
to  the  intolerant  spirit  of  Scotch  Presbyterianism.     The  difference  be- 


Contents.  xxi 

tween  the  treatment  wliich  the  Catholic  Bible  receives  from  Catholics 
and  that  which  the  Protestant  bible  receives  from  Protestants  v^rell 
expressed  in  the  contrast  between  the  reverential  attitude  of  Moses  as  ' 
he  stood  awe-struck  by  the  voice  from  the  burning  bush,  and  the 
daring  deeds  of  Hell's  sons  when  they  dragged  the  ark  into  the  tield 
of  battle.         .  .  .  .        ■     .  .  .  .       499 

CHAPTER   XXXV. 

Rules  of  the  Index  regarding  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures.  These  rules 
dictated  by  a  due  consideration  of  the  evils  attributable  to  the  indis- 
criminate use  of  the  Bible.  The  existence  of  these  evils  not  only 
proved  by  Catholic  writers,  but  admitted  and  deplored  by  intelligent 
Protestants,  and  even  by  the  reformers  themselves.  The  victims  of 
indiscriminate  bible  reading  still  numerous.  Composed  of  impostors, 
fanatics  and  fools.  Modern  methods  of  treating  them.  Instances  of 
recent  outrages  b}'^  them  in  the  United  States.  For  most  readers 
Bible  histories,  like  those  prepared  for  the  medieval  Christians,  more 
useful  and  certainly  less  dangerous  than  the  Bible.  Declaration  of  the 
British  Hierarchy  in  1826,  regarding  the  reading  of  the  Bible.  A  sim- 
ilar Declaration  the  same  j^ear  by  the  Irish  Hierarchy.  Decree  of  the 
Second  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  on  the  subject.  That  decree  ap- 
proved by  Pius  IX,  who  exhorts  the  American  Hierarchy  to  prepare 
as  correct  an  edition  as  possible  of  the  English  Bible  then  in  use.       514 

CHAPTER   XXXVI. 

Long  before  the  invention  of  the  printing  press  the  Bible  or  portions  of  it 
translated  into  the  language  of  each  Christian  country.  While  this 
was  being  done  no  distinction  made  between  Protoaiid  Deutero  books. 
Germany  favored  with  a  version  in  the  fourlli  centurj'.  France's 
earliest  known  version  belongs  to  the  eleventh  century.  Italy's  first 
version  appeared  in  the  thirteenth  century.  Spain  received  its  first  in 
the  same  century.  Portugal  its  first  about  the  same  time.  Flanders 
received  the  Scriptures  in  its  own  language  a  few  years  earlier,  Poland 
had  the  Bible  translated  into  its  own  language  not  until  tlie  fourteenth 
century.  Bohemia  was  supplied  with  a  version  of  the  New  Testament 
about  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Sweden  had  the  Bible  in 
its  own  language  in  the  fourteenth  century.  Iceland  possessed  a  version 
about  a  century  before  that.  Hungary  was  provided  with  at  least 
portions  of  a  version  about  the  .same  time.  Slavonia  traces  its  first 
version  to  the  ninth  century.  Ireland  certainly  blessed  with  a  version 
in  the  fourteenth  century  and  probably  with  versions  of  parts  of  the 
bible  several  centuries  before  that.  All  these  with  versions  in  other 
languages  made  long  before  the  birth  of  Luther,  or  the  introduction  of 


xxii  Contents. 

the  printing  press.     All  this  accomplished  under  the  influence  of  the 
Church  in  the  absence  of  all  rivalry  and  opposition.  .  .       535 

CHAPTER   XXXVII. 

The  Canon  of  Scripture  proclaimed  by  Protestants  in  their  Confessions  of 
Faith.  Anglican  Articles  of  Religion — at  first  42,  reduced  to  39.  Ar- 
ticle VI  untrue,  so  admitted  by  Anglicans.  Helvetic  confession  of 
Faith — the  work  of  Beza.  Its  appeal  to  St.  Augustine.  Tlie  Gallic 
confession  of  Faith — appeal  to  the  Spirit.  TJie  Belgic  confession  of 
Faith — of  a  class  with  the  Belgic.  Waldensian  confessio7i  of  Faith  — 
a  confessed  forger}'.  The  Confession  of  the  Dutch  Churches  appeals  to 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Dutchmen  sharp-sighted.  Ihe  Westminster  Confes- 
sion like  all  the  others  rejects  the  Deutero  books  and  maintains  that 
the  other  books  "  are  the  Word  of  God  because  they  are  the  Word 
of  God." !  The  Swiss  Declaration  of  167.5  insists  that  the  Hebrew 
text  as  it  stands,  consonants,  vowels,  etc.,  is  divinely  inspired  !  Ac- 
cording to  tiie  foremost  Protestant  scholars  some  of  the  deutero 
books  better  entitled  to  a  place  on  the  Canon  than  others  placed  thereon 
by  the  Reformers.       .  .  .  .  .  .  .       546 

CHAPTER    XXXVIII. 

Protestant  scholars  on  the  Protestant  plan  of  settling  the  Canon.  Jer- 
emiah Jones  denounces  that  plan  as  '"  folly  and  madness."  Richard 
Baxter  "  could  never  boast  of  any  such  testimony  or  light  of  the  Spirit  " 
by  which  other  Protestants  pretended  to  distinguish  between  canon- 
ical and  Apocryphal  writings.  Robert  Barcla}'  insists  that  "  it  is  im- 
possible to  prove  the  Canon  by  fhe  Scriptures."  John  Whitaker  an 
Anglican  minister  hold  that  it  belongs  to  the  Church  to  discern  be- 
tween true  and  false  Scripture.  The  Spirit  a,  last  ditch  for  Protestants 
when  hard  pressed  on  the  Canon.  Calvin's  Celestial  Revelations. 
According  to  Presliyterian  theology,  the  Supreme  Judge  in  controver- 
sies of  religion  is  the  Holy  Ghost  speaking  in  the  Scriptures.  .       560 

CHAPTER   XXXIX. 

The  principle  on  which  every  Protestant  creed  rests  false  and  impracticable. 
The  innovations  of  Luther  productive  of  fatal  fruits.  Hallam  on 
Luther"s  iminonil  and  irreligious  notions  as  well  as  his  nasty  and 
stupid  brutality.  Munzer  and  Knipperdolling.  Reformers  puzzled. 
One  of  two  courses  to  be  adopted.  A  renunciation  of  the  right  of 
private  judgment  or  a  return  to  Rome.  A  media  via  regarding  the 
Canon  proposed  by  Chemnitz  and  Bucer.  Gausscn  condemns  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  Protestant  canon  rested  and  devises  a  theory  of  his 
own.  That  Theory  as  objectionable  as  any  other  Protestant  theory  on 
the  subject.     ........       568 


Contents.  xxiii 

CHAPTER   XL. 

Emanuel  Swedenborg  and  Joe  Smith  on  the  Canon  of  Scripture.  Svveden- 
borg's  reveries  on  religion.  The  original  Reformers  curtail  the 
Canon  of  their  fathers.  Swedenborg  curtailed  theirs.  Tliey  cut  off 
six  entire  books.  He  more  than  thrice  that  number.  His  right  to 
mutilate  the  Canon  as  good  as  theirs.  His  ''  divine  science  of  corres- 
pondences" as  reasonable  as  Calvin's  •"celestial  revelations."  Joseph 
Smith  instead  of  curtailing  enlarges  the  Protestant  Canon.  Brief 
sketch  of  this  latest  of  Reformers.  His  book  of  Mormon,  a  composi- 
tion as  sacred  in  the  opinion  of  his  followers  as  King  James'  Bible  in 
that  of  its  Protestant  admirers.  Salt  Lake  tlie  ecclesiastical  centre  of 
the  "  Latter  Day  SaiiiL-  '  as  tiie  Mormons  call  themselves.  The  Pro- 
testant countries  of  I'^iu'opc  their  recruiting  grounds.  Lynch  law  ap- 
plied to  their  missionaries  in  the  Southern  States.  Polygamy  enjoined 
on  Joe  by  a  special  revelation.  Mormon  defence  of  that  institution 
against  the  assaults  of  the  "Gentiles."  The  treatment  of  the  Bible 
among  Americans.  Its  treatment  among  many  belonging  to  the 
educated  classes  in  Germany  and  Great  Britain.  .  .      577 

CHAPTER   XLL 

The  Deutero  Books  Canonical,  though  they  as  well  as  some  others  received 
as  such  by  Protestants  not  so  called  by  some  of  the  early  Fathers. 
AV  hy  not  so  called  by  these  Fathers.  The  Tridentine  decree  on  the 
Canon  of  Scripture  binding  on  all  Catholics.  It  ought  to  be  so  on  all 
to  uhomthe  Bible  is  a  divine  revelation.  The  binding  force  of  that 
decree  rests  First  on  the  fact,  that  it  belongs  to  tiie  Church  to  decide 
all  questions  pertaining  to  Faith  and  Morals  — that  fact  proved. 
Second  on  the  statement  of  the  Fathers  declaring  that  the  right  to 
distinguish  between  canonical  and  uncanouical  writings  is  inherent  in 
the  Church — that  statement  shown  to  have  been  made.  Third  on  the 
Infallibility  of  the  Churcli— a  point  which  all  must  admit  who  receive 
the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God,  else  their  belief  is  irrational,  as  will  be 
proved  in  Chapter  XLII.        ...  .  .       589 

CHAPTER   XLII. 

A  rational  belief  in  the  Canon  of  Scripture  implies  tliat  the  Council  of  Trent 
was  infallible  in  defining  it.  A  canon  of  Scripture  a  collection  of 
writings  having  God  as  its  Author.  Such  a  collection,  to  be  taken  for 
what  it  is,  must  be  stamped  by  competent  authority.  That  authority 
must  be  divine  else  it  is  insvifficient.  Mere  human  authority  mav  pro- 
duce conviction  regarding  the  authenticity  of  Imman  compositions. 
But  when  there  is  question  of  divine  writings  such  authority  is  quite 
incompetent.  The  Books  of  Scripture  cannot  establish  their  own 


xxiv  Contents. 

canonicity,  just  as  a  man's  will  cannot  demonstrate  its  genuineness. 
External  testimony  required  in  both  cases.  In  the  latter  that  testimoney 
may  be  human.  In  the  former  such  testimony  is  worthless.  For  the 
documents  in  that  case  profess  to  be  from  God.  Therefore,  no  one  but 
God  or  His  delegate  can  prove  that  that  is  the  case.  "Whether  the  con- 
tents of  the  Bible  are  divine  or  human  is  a  point  on  which  God  is  silent. 
But  all  Christians  insist  that  they  are  to  be  received  as  divine.  There 
must,  therefore,  be  some  one  to  assure  us  that  they  are  such.  And  that 
one  must  have  authoritj'  from  God  to  say  so.  That  one  is  the  Catholic 
Church  which  alone  claims  to  speak  in  God's  name.  If  thai  claim  be  not 
admitted,  belief  in  the  divinity  of  the  Bible  impossible,  irrational.  Many 
reasons  why  in  this  matter  the  Church  should  be  taken  at  her  word. 
These  reasons  stated.  If  the  Church  be  not  mfallible,  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  motive  for  believing  that  there  is  a  collection  of  divine  writ- 
ings, or  that  this  or  that  book  belongs  to  it.     Concluding  Remarks.      614 


CHAPTER  I. 


The  Bible. 


Philosophy  furnishes  abundant  reasons  for  believing 
in  the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  as  a  purely  spiritual, 
infinitely  perfect,  and  necessary  Being,  who  has  created 
and  governs  all  things.  Theology  proves  by  conclusive 
arguments  that  God  has  revealed  to  mankind,  principal- 
ly in  ivriting,  what  they  have  to  believe  and  practise. 
It  is  therefore  taken  for  granted  that  both  propositions 
are  entitled  to  the  rational  assent  of  the  reader,  in  order 
that  a  question  suggested  by  the  latter,  and  which  is 
the  subject  of  the  present  treatise,  may  be  at  once  intro- 
duced and  discussed.  What  is  the  writing  in  which 
God  has  made  the  revelation  referred  to  ? 

The  answer  is,  a  volume  commonly  called  the  Bible, 
from  the  Greek  word  Biblos,  signifying  at  present  a  book, 
but  meaning  originally  the  inner  bark  of  the  papyrus 
plant,  out  of  which  paper  was  made.  5zM«— small 
books— is  sometimes  used  to  designate  the  Bible.  This 
volume  claims  for  itself  such  names  as  the  Scripture,  ' 
the  Scriptures, '  the  Holy  Book, '  the  Holy  Books, "  the  Book 
of  the  Lord,  '  the  Sacred  Letters, '  but  was  also  designated 
by  some  of  the  early  Christian  writers  the  Instrument, ' 
the  Libraries, '  the  Pandect, '  and  the  Divinely  Inspired 

'  Mark,  xii,  lo. 

2  Matt,  xxi,  42.  3  II,  Mach.  viii.  23  <  I.  Mach.  xii.  9. 
*  Isaias,  xxxiv.  16.                       *'  II.  Tim.  iii.  15. 

^  Tertullian  contra  AIarc.\,.  iv.  c.  i. 

«  S.  Jerome,  Praf.  in  Esther,  Ep.  xlix.,  ad  Pamm.,  ^  3. 

3  Cassiodorus,  de  div.,  lect.  c.  xiv. 


2  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testcunent 

Scriptures  ]  '  yet  it  has  been  more  commonly  referred  to 
in  ancient  and  modern  times  as  the  Scripture  or  Scriptures, 
often  qualified  by  the  word  Holy,  Sacred,  or  Divine. 
The  volume  in  question  consists  of  several  compositions 
belonging  to  different  dates,  and  originating  with  differ- 
ent authors,  whom  God  employed  for  the  purpose. 
Considered  as  a  whole,  and  apart  from  all  other  writings, 
these  compositions  constitute  what  is  called  The  Canon 
of  Scripture;  that  is,  a  catalogue  or  collection  of  books, 
which  the  Jews  always  believed  to  have  been  written 
under  divine  influence,  and  which,  with  some  additions. 
Christians  have  received  as  such.  Why  these  books 
have  been  so  called  will  now  be  made  apparent. 

The  word  Canon,  at  present  found  in  the  speech  of 
almost  every  civilized  nation,  has  been  adopted  from  the 
Greek  language,  and  is  derived  from  the  Greek  kane,  or 
kanna,  a  reed  or  cane.  It  therefore  signified  originally 
7S.  straight  rod  ox  pole,  and  by  degrees  a  r2ile  or  line  for 
measuring,  as  well  as  a  standard  or  model.  It  was  and  is 
still  used  to  designate  conciliar  and  Pontifical  decrees, 
and  clerg3^men  attached  to  cathedrals  or  collegiate 
churches  are  known  by  the  name  of  Canons,  as  being  on 
the  list  or  catalogue  of  those  who  have  special  fmictions 
to  perform  in  connection  with  such  institutions.  The 
principal  part  of  the  Mass  is  also  called  the  Canon,  either 
because  that  part  constitutes  the  fixed  rule  according  to 
which  the  Holy  Sacrifice  is  offered,  or  because  it  con- 
tains a  list  or  catalogue  of  those  who  are  commemorated 
therein. 

In  the  Greek  Scriptures  the  word  is  rarely  met  with, 
but  when  it  does  occur  therein  it  has  no  reference  to  a 
catalogue  or  collection  of  sacred  books.     It  is  found  in 


^  Amphilochius,  Cartii.  ad  Scleiic.    Most  of  these  names  have  been  given  to 
the  Scriptures  also  by  other  early  writers. 


The  Canon  of  tlic  Old  Testament.  3 

II.  Cor.  X.  13,  15,  16,  where  it  refers  to  a  ride,  or  to  a//;/r 
for  fixing  boundaries  ;  and  in  Gal.  vi.  16  as  well  as 
Philipp.  iii.  16,  implying  there  a  doctrinal  rule.  And  it 
appears  that  it  is  in  this  sense  that  the  word  is  taken 
whenever  it  is  employed  by  the  Fathers  of  the  first  three 
centuries,  in  the  West  as  well  as  in  the  East,  the  Latin 
Rcgula  (rule)  conveying  the  same  idea  as  the  Greek 
Kanon.  Towards  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  the 
custom  of  applying  the  word  to  a  catalogue,  or  rather 
the  entire  collection  of  Sacred  Books  was  introduced. 
For  St.  John  Chrysostom  '  among  the  Greeks,  and  SS. 
Jerome  ^  and  Augustine  ^  among  the  Latins,  seem  to 
have  been  the  first  to  employ  the  word  for  that  purpose. 
Since  then  the  use  commonly  made  of  the  w^ord  conveys 
the  idea  of  an  index  or  catologue  of  those  books  which 
Christians  revere  as  the  word  of  God,  and  look  upon, 
when  properly  understood,  as  a  rule  or  standard  {\\io\x^ 
not  the  only  one)  of  belief  and  practice.  Hence  the 
Books  of  which  the  Bible  is  composed  are  called  canoni- 
cal or  canonized ;  and  their  contents  Canonical  Scripture, 
an  expression  consecrated  by  not  only  ancient  usage, ' 
but  Ecumenical  sanction.  ' 

The  name  of  each  ot  the  Sacred  Books  among  Chris^ 
tians  is  that  of  the  writer,  or  such  as  denotes  the 
character  of  its  contents,  or  that  of  the  persons  to  whom 
or  about  whom  it  was  written.  These  books  are  also 
classified  under  different  titles,  according  to  the  period 
within  which  they  were  written,  and  the  nature  of  the 
subjects  treated  therein.  Thus  such  of  them  as  were 
written  before  the  coming  of  Christ  constitute  the  Old 
Testament,  those  written  afterwards  belong  to  what  is 
•called  the  New  Testament.     So  far  as  the  words  Old  and 

1  In  Act.  hom.  xxxiii.  %  4. 

*  Prol.  Gal.  '■'■  Doctr.  Chris.,  lib.  ii  ,  c.  viii.,  13. 
■•  Cottc.  Laodic,  can.  lix. ;    Cone.  vi.      Carth.,  can.  Ivii. 

*  Cone.  Trid.,  Sessio  iv. 


4  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Xe7u  are  concerned,  the  distinction  is  obviously  quite 
appropriate,  since  the  one  class  preceded  the  other,  not 
only  in  point  of  time,  but  by  way  of  preparation.  But 
why  the  word  Testament  ?  As  one  of  several  answers 
which  might  be  given  to  the  question,  it  may  be  ob- 
served that  St.  Paul,  II.  Cor.  iii.  14,  refers  to  the  Scrip- 
ture read  by  the  Jews  as  the  palaia  (old)  diatJieke,  thus 
implying  that  there  was  a  kaine  (new)  diatheke  possessed 
by  the  Christians.  Now  diatheke,  though  it  is  sometimes 
used  in  the  Scripture  to  express  a  compact  or  covenant, 
primarily  signifies  a  testament  or  last  will,  the  sense 
attached  to  it  in  Heb.  ix.  16,  &c.,  and  it  has  been  very 
appropriately  so  translated  in  many  passages  by  the 
author  of  that  incomparable  copy  of  the  divine  volume 
— the  Latin  Vulgate,  for  many  centuries  the  only  ver- 
sion in  circulation  throughout  Western  Christendom — 
where,  for  that  reason,  the  expression  Old  and  New 
Testament  (Vetus  et  Novum  Testamentum)  came  into 
general  use  ;  while  its  equivalent, /rt/iZzVz  kai  kaine  diatheke, 
conveyed  the  same  idea  among  the  Christians  of  the  East. 
The  Catholic  Canon.  The  following  catalogue  ex- 
hibits the  books  which  were  pronounced  canonical  by 
the  Council  of  Trent,  in  its  Fourth  Session,  on  April  8, 
1546. 

Books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

1.  Genesis,  "|    ^  i6.  H.   Esdras,  also  enticled  Ne- 30.  Ezechiel, 

2.  Exodus,  I  hernias,  31.   Daniel, 

3.  Leviticus,  \.%  i"].  Tobias,  32.  Ozee, 

4.  Numbers,  1    S  18.  Judith,  33.  Joel, 

5.  Deuteronomy,     J    I  19.  Esther,  34-  Amos, 

6.  Josue.  '    '  20.  Tob,  35.  Abdias, 

7.  judges,  21.  Davidical  Psalter     of    15036.  Jonas, 

8.  Ruth,  Psalms,  37.  "Micheas, 

9.  L  Kings,  22.  Proverbs,  38.  Nahum, 

10.  IL  Kings,  23.  Ecclesiastes,  39.  Habacuc. 

11.  HI.  Kings,  24.  Canticle  of  Canticles,  40.  Sophonias, 

12.  IV.  Kings,  25.  Wisdom,  41.  Aggeeus,       j  | 

13.  I.   PaialipomenoD,  26.  Ecclesiasticus,  42.  Zacharias,     |  | 

14.  II.  Paralipomenon,  27.  Isaias.  43.  Malachias,  J  i, 

15.  I.  Esdras,  28.  Jeremias  with  Lamentations.  44.  I.  Machabees, 

29.  Baruch,  45.  II.  Machabees. 


The  Canon  of  the  Olei  Testament. 
Books  of  the  New  Testament. 


1,  Matthew,  \     i?    6.   Romans, 

2.  Mark,  [  =  *  |    7.  I.  Corinthians, 


Luke,  t  oS  -    ^-  II-  Corinthians, 


20.  I.  Peter, 

21.  II.  Peter, 

22.  I.  John, 

23.  IT.  John, 

24.  III.  John, 

25.  James, 

26.  Jude, 

27.  Apocalypse. 


4.  John,  )      ?•?    9-  Galatians, 

5.  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  10.  Ephesians, 

written    by  Luke,  il.   Philippians, 
the  EvangeHst,        12.  Colossians, 

13.  I.  Thessalonians, 

14.  II.  Thessalonians, 

15.  I.  Timothy, 

16.  II.  Timothy, 

17.  Titus. 
iS.   Philemon, 
19.   Hebrews, 

Altogether,  therefore,  according  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  canonical  books  are  enumerated  in  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  they  amount  to  72-45  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  27  of  the  New. 

Christians  at  an  early  period  divided  the  Sacreei 
Books  into  several  classes,  based  on  the  character  of 
their  contents.  At  present  they  are  generally  classified 
as  legal ;  historical ;  moral,  sapiental  or  didactic ;  and 
prophetical.  The  five  Books  of  Moses  or  the  Penta- 
teuch in  the  Old,  and  the  four  Gospels  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, are  legal.  Josue  and  the  following  books  as  far 
as  Psalms,  together  with  the  two  Books  of  Machabees, 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in 
the  New,  are  historical.  The  Psalms,  Proverbs,  and  the 
other  Books  as  far  as  Isaias  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  Epistles  in  the  New,  are  sapiental.  Isaias  and  the 
other  Prophets  as  far  as  Machabees  in  the  Old,  and  the 
Apocalypse  in  the  New  Testament,  are  prophetical. 
The  legal  books  are  so  called,  because  in  those  of 
Moses  the  Old  Law  is  contained,  and  the  New  Law  is 
set  forth  in  the  Gospels.  The  historical  are  so  desig- 
nated because  they  are  a  recoi-d  of  past  events.  The 
sapiental  are  thus  styled,  because  they  inculcate  the 
highest  wisdom  by  encouraging  the  practice  of  virtue 
and  denouncing  vice.  The  prophetical,  as  the  name 
imports,  are  those  in  which  future  events  are  foretold. 


6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

These  distinctions  are  recognized  principally  among- 
Catholics,  and  are  both  judicious  and  appropriate. 

Besides  the  strictly  canonical  books,  there  were  in 
early  times  others,  professedly  religious,  and  written, 
some  of  them  before,  some  of  them  after  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Christian  era.  Several  of  them  have  utterly 
disappeared,  but  the  number  still  extant  is  quite  consid- 
erable. The  style,  spirit,  and  contents  of  many  among 
them  are  such, that  their  real  character  could  be  detected 
solely  by  the  light  of  unerring  tradition.  Such  clever 
attempts  at  fraud  seem  to  have  thrown  a  shade  of  suspi- 
cion even  on  some  books,  of  whose  divine  origin  prob- 
ably no  one  would  otherwise  have  entertained  a  doubt. 
As  a  safeguard,  therefore,  against  error  in  a  matter 
so  important,  for  several  centuries  after  the  completion 
of  the  sacred  volume,  ecclesiastical  writers  often  applied 
to  all  books  professing  to  belong  to  it  certain  terms, 
which  expressed  the  opinions  they  had  formed  regarding 
the  character  of  these  books.  These  terms  do  not  in 
all  cases,  even  when  used  by  the  same  writer,  convey 
the  same  meaning.  Yet  they  enable  the  reader  to  per- 
ceive that  the  writers  in  question  generally  divided  all 
books,  the  intrinsically  as  well  as  merely  professedly 
sacred,  into  four  classes.  At  least,  such  a  division  is 
suggested  by  their  criticisms. 

The  hrst  class  consisted  of  those  books  whose  canon- 
icity  all  Christians,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  obscure 
sectarists,  always  admitted.  They  comprised  almost  all 
on  the  preceding  catalogue. 

Second  class.  Those  books,  whose  canonicity,  though 
generally  admitted,  was  either  rejected  or  doubted  by 
a  few  otherwise  orthodox  writers.  They  embraced  all 
on  the  preceding  catalogue  which  were  not  included 
in  the  first  class. 

Third  class.  Those  books  not  found  in  the  preceding 
catalogue,  and  which,  though  some  of  the  early  Fathers 


The  CiDion  of  the  Old  Testament.  7 

cited  them  as  Sacred  Scripture,  were  even  then  and  are 
now  ahnost  universally  excluded  from  the  canon. 

Fourth  class.  Those  that  were  generally  not  only  pro- 
nounced uncanonical,  but  stigmatized  as  absurd,  heretic- 
al, or  blasphemous. 

Following  are  some  of  the  words  by  which  the  early 
writers  seem  to  indicate  the  class  to  which,  as  judged 
by  their  own  statements.,  they  appear  to  assign  the  books 
which  they  had  occasion  to  mention.  It  need  hardly  be 
observed  that  in  some  instances  the  distinctions  made 
are  not  very  sharply  drawn. 

The  books  of  the  first  class,  besides  being  designated  as 
shown  above,'  were  said  to  be  "■  acknotvledged  by  all  ;'^ 
tneorporated  or  in  the  Testament ;  ^  not  eontradicted ;  ^  reg- 
ular ;  *  canonized  ;  ®  of  perfect  authority !' ' 

Those  of  the  second  class  were  denominated  "  not 
canonized  ;  *  not  canonical ;  '  controverted ;  '"  ecclesiastical ;  " 
apocryphal ;  '''  of  middle  authority  ;  ''  pseudepigraphal,''  '* 
(ascribed  to  the  wrong  author). 

The  books  of  the  third  are  described  as  "spurious ;  "" 
to  be  repudiated ;  '*  apocryphal ;  "  of  7to  authority."  " 

The  books  of  the  fourth  class  are  denounced  as  "apoc- 
ryphal;'^ absurd  and  impious  ;"""  to  be  not  only  repudiated 
but  condemned ;  ^'  of  no  authority.''  ^'^ 

'   i".  I-  2  Eusebius,  E.  Hist.,  B.  iii.,  c.  3. 

3  Ibidem.  •»  Ibidem,  vi.,  c.  13. 

*  Origen  on  Matthew  xxvii.  9.  transl.  by  Rufinus.     «  Athanasius,  Fest.  Ep. 

''  Junilius  de  Pari.  D.  Leg. 

8  Athanasius,  Fesi.  Ep.  »  Greg,  the  Great,  Mor.,  B.  xix.,  c.  xxi. 

'0  Eusebius,  E.  Hist.,  B.  vi.,  c.  13,14;  Athanas.,  Synopsis. 

''  Rufinus,  Expos.  Symb. 

'2  Jerome,  Pref.  to  Dan.     '^  Junilius,  De  Part.  D.  Leg. 

'■*  Jerome,  Pref.  to  Books   0/ Solomon. 

1*  Eusebius,  E.  Hist.,  B.  iii.,  c.  25. 

'«  Innocent  I.,  Ep.  Exitper.      "  Jerome  Ep.  to  Lata. 

'*  Junilius,  de  Part.  D.  Leg. 

19  Origen,  Pref.  to  Canticles.  20  Eusebius,  E.  Hist.,  B.  iii.,  c.  25. 

2'  Innocent  I.,  Ep.  to  Exitper.  2^  Junilius,  de  Part.  D.  Leg. 


8  TJie  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament, 

It  is  thus  seen  that  man}^  of  the  terms  employed  by 
the  Fathers  (especially  the  word  apocryphal),  for  the 
purpose  of  indicating  the  quality  of  the  various  books 
claiming,  to  be  parts  of  the  Sacred  Scripture,  do  not  al- 
ways convey  the  same  idea,  even  when  used  by  the 
same  writers.  The  result  has  been  that  the  belief  of 
many  of  the  Fathers  regarding  some  books,  either  act- 
ually or  only  professedly  pertaining  to  the  divine  volume, 
has  been  misunderstood  by  readers,  who  rushed  at  con- 
clusions based  on  one  or  two  isolated  passages  in  their 
works,  instead  of  patiently  investigating  the  practice  as 
well  as  the  statements  of  the  authors,  and  then  pro- 
nouncing judgment.  As  an  instance  of  this,  the  use 
that  has  been  made  of  apocrypJial  may  here  be  referred 
to.  This  word,  though  originally  Greek,  occurs  but 
rarely  in  the  Greek  Scriptures ;  and  when  it  is  met 
with  therein,  it  has  the  same  sense  which  pagan  Greek 
writers  had  attached  to  it.  It  is  found  in  Mark  iv.  22, 
and  is  there  translated  secret ;  in  Luke  viii.  17,  where  its 
English  equivalent  is  hidden,  and  in  Colossians  ii.  3, 
being  rendered  hid,  but  in  no  case  implying  something 
worthless,  objectionable,  false,  or  spurious.  Indeed,  it 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  used  for  that  purpose  until- 
the  appearance  of  those  fictitious  Gospels,  Epistles,  Acts, 
Testaments,  and  other  similar  productions  of  primitive 
Christian  times,  when  the  word  wtis  applied  to  all  such 
writings,  but  probably  as  much  to  express  the  obscurity 
of  their  origin  as  the  too  often  objectionable  character 
of  their  contents.  Its  application  by  writers  to  books 
which,  though  belonging  to  the  Bible,  were  regarded 
by  them  with  suspicion,  or  as  unfit  to  be  generally  read, 
followed  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  such  works  are 
known  to  have  been  even  among  those  pertaining  to  the 
Hebrew  Canon.  For  Origen,  in  his  answer  to  Africanus, 
intimates  that  the  Jews  had  "  Hebrew  apocryphal 
books  ;  "   and  there  is  good  reason  for  beheving  that 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  9 

Canticles  and  Ecclesiastes,  with  portions  of  Genesis  and 
Ezechiel,  belonged  to  the  number.  In  fact,  Origen  states 
that  it  was  said,  "  That  among  the  Hebrews  no  one  be- 
fore reaching  the  age  of  maturity  was  allowed  even  to 
hold  this  book  (Canticles)  in  his  hands  ;" '  and  St.  Jerome  ■' 
remarks,  that  "  The  Hebrews  say,  that  this  book  (Eccle- 
siastes)   might  seem  worthy  to  disappear  with  the 

other  lost  books  of  Solomon  ;"  besides,  in  his  Epistle  to 
Paulinus,  he  declares  that  "  The  begining  and  end  of 
Ezechiel  are  involved  in  obscurities,  and  among  the  He- 
brews these  parts  and  the  exordium  of  Genesis  must 
not  be  read  by  a  man  under  thirty.  " 

But  the  early  Christian  Fathers  generally  applied 
apocryphal  only  to  such  writings  as  were  spurious,  fals- 
ified, or  heretical."  And  S.  Jerome  was  the  first  to  so 
designate  all  books  supposed  to  belong  to  the  Old 
Testament,  but  which  he  did  not  find  in  the  Hebrew 
canon.  No  matter  what  their  intrinsic  merits,  or  the 
esteem  in  which  they  had  been  held  among  Christians, 
whatever  is  outside  that  canon  "  must  be  placed  among 
the  apocryphal,"  is  his  arbitrary  ruling.^  Yet,  while  so 
deciding,  he  is  proved  by  his  own  words  to  have  recog- 
nized various  and  important  distinctions  among  the 
books  which  he  thus  stigmatized.  For  Judith,  which, 
as  he  admits  (since  he  so  read),  "  the  Council  of  Nice 
computed  among  the  Sacred  Scriptures,"  must  have  had 
for  that  reason  with  him  an  authority  equal  to  that  of 
any  book  in  the  Hebrew  canon.  And  Tobias,  with 
the  other  books  implied  by  him  as  apocryphal  in  his 
Prol.  Gal.,  must  have  been  in  his  opinion  (because,  to  use 
his  own  words,  "  the  Church  reads  them"  *)  far  supe- 
rior in  authority  to  "  the  dreams,"  as  he  styles  them,^ 

'  Prologue  to  Canticles,  c.  xx.  ^  On  Eccles.,  xii.  13,  14. 

^  Clem,  of  Alexand.,  Strom.  L.  iii.,  c.  iv;  S.  Iren.,  contra  liar.   L.  i.  c.  xx; 
Origen,  Prolog,  to  Cant.;  Tertull.,  de  anim.  c.  ii.  ■*  Prol.  Gal. 

^  Pre/,  in  Libr,  Salomcnis.  e  /^  £^(i_  ^(  Neh.  pnef. 


lO  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

of  apocryphal  III.  &  IV.  Esdras,  or  the  apocryphal  book 
of  Enoch.' 

Ecclesiastical,  as  used  by  Rufinus,  the  first  to  distin- 
guish in  this  way  a  certain  class  of  professedly  Scrip- 
tural compositions,  meant  such  books  as  were  used  in 
the  Church,  though  not,  at  least  universally,  recognized 
as  canonical.  He  was  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Eu- 
sebius,  had  in  fact  translated  his  Ecclesiastical  History. 
In  that  work  he  found  that  Eusebius  had  made  some 
distinctions  in  the  books  of  Scripture,  calling  one  class 
controverted,  to  which  no  doubt  Rufinus  considered  ec- 
clesiastical equivalent,  as  that  class  was  composed  of 
books  which,  though  read  publicly  as  well  as  privately, 
were  not  generally  received  as  canonical. 

The  other  terms  applied  by  the  Fathers  to  the  books 
which  commonly  passed  as  Scripture  are  so  well  under- 
stood as  to  require  no  explanation.  But  canonical  and 
canonized,  although  the  sense  generally  attached  to  the 
words  has  been  already  indicated,  call  for  a  few  addition- 
al remarks.  At  present  canonical  or  canonized  books  nec- 
essarily mean  only  such  to  which  the  title  of  Scripture, 
or  sacred,  holy,  divine  Scripture,  is  applicable.  Among 
early  Christians  it  was  otherwise  ;  with  them  canonical 
or  canonized^xdoV-S  by  no  means  implied  a  fixed  number  of 
writings,  to  which  alone  the  name  of  Scripture,  sacred, 
holy,  or  divine  Scripture,  could  be  given.  For  there 
were,  besides  the  canonical  or  canonized  books,  others, 
which  were  frequently,  it  might  be  said  generally,  called 
Scripture,  even  holy  and  divine  Scripture.  These  ear- 
ly Christians,  too,  had  a  canon  embracing  generally  all 
Old  Testament  books  received  as  divine  by  the  Jews,, 
and  all  New  Testament  books,  except  certain  epistles 
and  the  Apocalypse;  but  they  also  honored  with  the 
name  of  Scripture  and  divine  Scripture  these  and  sev- 
eral other  books  as  parts  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 

1  Liberate  vir.  illustr.c.  iv. 


Tlie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  1 1 

ment ;  of  these  others  some  were  afterwards  designated 
canonical,  and  the  rest  at  last  universally  rejected  as  not 
belonging  to  the  Scriptures,  if  they  had  ever  been  so  re- 
garded. Hence  canonical  or  canonized,  so  far  as  that  term 
applies  to  books,  had  a  meaning  in  primitive  Christian 
times  very  different  from  what  that  term  has  at  present. 
Consequently  all  the  Christian  Fathers  who  pro- 
nounced any  book  canonical  di\^  so,  because  they  found  it 
in  the  Hebrew  canon  and  generally  treated  as  canonical 
Scripture  by  the  Church  ;  while  the  only  reason  they  had, 
in  most  instances,  for  declaring  a  book  uncanonical  was  its 
absence  from  that  canon,  or  certain  doubts  expressed 
regarding  it  by  other  writers.  That  such  was  the  case 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  Fathers,  whether 
giving  a  list  of  the  sacred  books,  or  expressing  an  opin- 
ion regarding  the  character  of  any  particular  book,  ex- 
clude from  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  all  such 
books  as  were  rejected  by  the  Jews,  though  they  had 
no  hesitation  on  other  occasions  in  citing  several  such 
books  as  sacred  or  divine  Scripture.  The  absence, 
however,  of  any  authentic  decision  on  the  subject  by 
the  Church  suiificiently  accounts  for  the  contradiction 
between  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  Fathers  in  ques- 
tion. That  certain  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
canonical  they  were  assured,  because  they  all  knew  that 
these  books  were  received  as  such,  not  only  by  the  Jews 
but  by  the  Church.  Of  other  books  included  in  their 
copies  of  the  Old  Testament  some  were  in  doubt,  be- 
cause, while  aware  they  were  not  on  the  Jewish  Canon, 
they  were  not  certain  that  they  had  been  approved  by 
the  Church.  And  though  they  knew  that  several  books 
professing  to  belong  to  the  New  Testament  were  uni- 
versally recognized  as  part  of  it,  they  were  aware  that 
there  were  others  not  so  recognized.  Of  the  latter,  as 
well  as  those  Old  Testament  books  rejected  by  the  Jews, 
some  of  the  Fathers  speak  with  hesitation,  if  the}'  do  not 


12  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

positively  exclude  them  from  the  Canon,  when  exhibiting 
a  catalogue  of  the  sacred  writings;  but  they  commonly 
refer  to  them  as  Scripture,  or  even  sacred  Scripture, 
when  they  have  occasion  to  cite  them  ;  thus  showing 
that,  while  they  were  not  absolutely  sure  that  the  books 
in  question  were  canonical,  they  chose  to  treat  them  as 
integral  parts  of  the  Word  of  God. 

Books  of  the  fourth  class  were  never  mentioned  ex- 
cept to  be  condemned  as  absurd  or  pernicious.  It  was 
not  so  in  the  case  of  books  belonging  to  the  third  class. 
These  were  always  regarded  at  least  as  innocuous  ;  a 
few  of  them  were  treated  with  a  certain  degree  of  re- 
spect, even  called  divine  b}^  some  of  the  early  Fathers. 
III.  Esdras,  for  example,  from  about  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century  until  far  in  the  fifth,  was  cited  as  Scrip- 
ture by  a  few  w^riters, '  who  obtained  great  distinction 
by  their  learning  or  sanctity.  The  books  of  the  second 
class  were  appealed  to  at  all  times  as  Scripture,  by  all 
those  who  had  occasion  to  quote  the  sacred  text,  even 
by  those  from  whose  catalogues  they  were  formally  ex- 
cluded, a  fact  of  which,  however  remarkable,  abundant 
evidence  will  be  found  in  their  writings.  Soon  after 
the  first  quarter  of  the  fourth  century  Greek  catalogues 
of  the  Sacred  Books  began  to  appear.  But  these  cata- 
logues are  rarely  identical.  Some  of  them  include  one 
or  more  of  the  books  of  the  second  class  among  those 
of  the  first.  Others  exclude  from  the  first  class  all  those 
of  the  second,  with  the  remark  that  they  were  not 
canonical,  or  that  they  were  read  in  the  Church,  or 
that  they  were  read  to  catechumens.  In  the  last  half 
of  the  same  century  similar  efforts  to  catalogue  the 
sacred  books  were  made  among  the  Latins,  and  with 
somewhat  similar  results,  though  with  an  increasing 
tendency  to  include  in  the  divine  volume  all  books  per- 

'  Clement  of  AL,  Strom.  L.  iii.  c.  xxi;  S.  Augustine,  Civ.  Dei,  L.  xviii.  c. 
xxxvi.  and  oiliers. 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  ij 

taining  to  the  second  class  ;  all  of  which,  however,  in  the 
East  as  well  as  the  West,  continued  from  the  first  to  be 
generally  quoted  as  Scripture,  even  by  the  very  authors 
of  those  catalogues  from  which  they  had  been  formally 
excluded.       This  remarkable  antagonism  between   the 
explicit  declarations  of  a  few  writers  and  their  belief  as 
implied  in  their  uniform  practice  ceased  at  last,  so  far  as 
Catholics  were  concerned,  when  by  the  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  books  of 
the  second  class,  no  less  than  those  of  the  first,  were  de- 
clared canonical.      Soon  after,  to  distinguish  one  from 
the  other,  those  belonging  to  the  first  class  were  called 
protocanonical,  the  first  in  the  canon,  because  they  have 
been  always  received  in  and  by  the  Church  ;   and  those 
of  the  second  class  were  called  deuterocanonical,  second 
or  next  in  the  canon,   because,  though  always  received 
as  Divine  Scripture  by  the  Church,  they  had  not  been 
always  so  received  by  some  in  the  Church,  a  fact  which 
rendered  it  necessary  to  pronounce  them  canonical  at  a 
time,    of  course,   subsequent   to   that   when    the_  other 
books  were   received  as   canonical   by   the   unanimous 
consent  of  all  Christians.     The  division   into  protoca- 
nonical and  deuterocanonical  probably  originated  with 
Sixtus  of   Sienna,  but  has  never  been  sanctioned  in  an}- 
way  by  the  Church,  she  having  always  treated  all  books 
in  the  canon  as  divine,  regardless  of  the  order  in  which 
they    had    been    officially    placed    thereon.       Yet    the 
distinction  is  generally  made  use  of  by  Catholic  writers 
who  treat  of  the  canon,  as  it  facilitates  the  discussion  of 
the  subject.      To  some  extent  it  is  also  recognized   by 
Protestant  writers,  though  by  many  of  them  the  deutero- 
canonical  books   of  the    Old    Testament,  with   several 
others   once   found   in   that  part  of  the    Bible,  are    des- 
ignated apocryphal,  and  the  deuterocanonical  books  of 
the  New  Testament  are  grouped  under   the  name  of 
Antilegomena,  contradicted.       In  the  present  work  proto 


14  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

and  deutero,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  will  be  substituted 
hereafter  {or  protocanonical2i\\^  deiiterocanonical. 

Of  the  deutero  books,  some,  as  just  remarked,  are 
found  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  others  in  the  New. 
Those  belonging  to  the  former  are  Tobias,  Judith, 
Esther,  '  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  Baruch,  First  and 
Second  Machabees,  all  of  the  third  chapter  of  Daniel 
commencing  with  verse  twenty-fourth  and  ending  with 
verse  ninetieth,  that  is,  the  Prayer  of  Azarias,  the  Song 
of  the  Three  Children,  and  the  two  last  chapters,  xiii. 
and  xiv.,  containing  the  history  of  Susanna  and  the  story 
of  Bel  and  the  Dragon.  The  deutero  books  of  the  New 
Testament  are  the  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Hebrews, 
the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude,  the 
second  Epistle  of  St.  Peter,  the  second  and  third  Epistle 
of  St.  John,  the  Apocalypse,  together  with  the  last 
twelve  verses  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  that  part  of  the 
twenty-second  Chapter  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel  describing 
the  bloody  sweat  of  the  Redeemer  and  the  visit  of  the 
comforting  angel,  and  that  part  of  the  eighth  chapter  in 
St.  John's  Gospel  referring  to  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery. 

'  Esther  is  here  inserted  among  the  deutero  books,  for  the  reason  that,  though 
most  CathoUc  writers  place  it  among  the  proto,  several  Fathers  either  considered 
it  doubtful  or  excluded  it  from  the  canon.  It  is  omitted  in  MeUto's  catalogue, 
is  declared  not  canonical  in  the  catalogues  attributed  to  Athanasius,  is  doubted 
by  Amphilochius,  is  overlooked  in  the  catalogue  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  is 
omitted  by  Leontius,  is  placed  among  the  contradicted  books  by  Nicephorus 
of  Constantinople,  and  is  said  to  be  destitute  of  perfect  authority  by  Junilius. 
Erasmus  (Explan.  Symbolic  Caiech.  4.),  Sixtus  of  Sienna  (Bibliotheca  Sancta 
L.  i.  p.  14.),  Bellarmine  {de  verho  Dei,  L.  i.  c.  4.),  Mellini  {Inst.  Bible.,  p.  i. 
diss.  i.  c.  iii.),  and  Dixon;  (G^w.  Introd.,  c.  I.)  classify  it  with  the  deutero  books. 
Several  Protestant  writers  have  denied  its  canonicity  ;  so  it  has  been  said  by 
Whiston,  who,  while  treating  of  Esther  as  contained  in  the  Protestant  Bible, 
observes  himself  that  "  no  rehgious  Jew  could  well  be  the  author  of  it."  (x\ote 
on  Jos.  Antiq.  B.  xi.,  c.  6,  v3  I3-)  It  is  therefore  not  easy  to  see  why,  when 
Judith,  for  exaniple,  is  placed  among  the  deutero,  Esther  should  be  classified 
with  the  proto  books,  especially  as  the  latter  was  at  one  time  not  included  in 
their  canon  bv  the  Jews. 


CHAPTER   II. 


The  Jewish  Canon. 

The  Jews  exclude  from  their  canon  not  only  all  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  but  all  the  deutero  of  the  old, 
except  the  nine  first  chapters,  and  the  three  first  verses 
of  the  tenth  chapter,  of  Esther.  The  number  of  books 
on  their  canon  is  really  thirty-nine.  But,  by  arbitrarily 
reckoning  in  several  instances  as  one,  two  or  more 
books  distinguished  by  different  titles,  and  written  by 
different  authors,  they  have  reduced  these  thirty-nine  to ' 
a  much  less  number.  Josephus,  the  Jewish  historian, 
who  wrote  about  the  close  of  the  first  century,  is  the 
first  to  say  that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  consisted  of 
twenty-two  Books.  '  And  St.  Jerome  ^  remarks  that 
the  reason  of  arranging  the  whole  collection  in  this 
way  was,  that  the  number  of  books  might  correspond  to 
the  number  of  letters  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  which 
was  twenty-two.  It  may  have  been  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  the  Greeks  divided  their  Iliad  and  Od3'Sse_y 
into  twenty-four  books  each,  that  being  the  num- 
ber of  characters  in  the  Greek  alphabet.  As  arranged 
on  this  principle,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  enumer- 
ated in  the  following  order,  each  book  being  preceded 
from  first   to  last  not  only  by  its  proper    number,  but 

*  "I.  Contra  Apion.''^  %  8.  ^  "  Frologiis  Galeatiis." 


i6 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 


by   its  proper    letter,   which  letter,    however,    is    here 
omitted  : — 


1.  Berescith,         that  is, 

2.  Veele  Scemoth,      " 

3.  Vajikia,  " 

4.  Vaiedabher,  " 

5.  Elle  haddevarim,  " 

6.  Jeosciua,  '* 

7.  Sciophetim  ve        " 

Ruth, 

8.  Scemuel  I.  &  II.    " 

9.  JMelachim  I.  &  II.   " 

10.  Iescia)?hu,  " 

11.  lirmijahu  veki-       '' 

noth. 


Genesis  12.   lehhezkiel,  that  is,  Ezcchiel. 

Exodus.  13.   There-Asar,     "       12    Minor  Pro- 

pliets 
Book  of  Psalms 


Leviticus.  14.  SepherTehil- 

lim, 
Numbers.      '    15.   Misle, 


"  Proverbs  of 
Solomon. 
"    Job. 
"    Daniel. 
"    Esdias  I.&II. 


Deuteronomy.  16.  Job, 
Josue.  17.   Daniel, 

Judges   and     18.   Ezra, 

Ruth. 
Kings  I.  &  II.  19.   Divre   hajamin     "   Paralipom- 

enon. 
Kings  III.  &  20.     Esther,  "  Esther. 

IV. 
Isaias.  21.    Koheleth,  "    EccleSiastes. 

Jeremias  with  22.  Scir  hascirim>      "  Canticle  of  Can- 

Lamenta-  tides. 

tions. 


In  this  list,  each  of  the  first  hve  tiames  is  simpi}'  the 
first  words  of  the  book  which  it  indicates.  The  remain- 
ing names  are  either  those  of  the  respective  authors,  or 
such  as  denote  the  persons  or  subjects  treated  in  the 
corresponding  books.  KinotJi  means  Lamentations, 
the  book  being  sometimes  called  by  the  Jews  Echa 
(How),  which  is  the  first  word.  There-Asar  means  the 
number  twelve.  Divre  hajamin — words  of  days — a 
diary  or  Journal,  rendered  by  Latins  as  well  as  Greeks 
Paralipomena — things  omitted,  and  by  the  English  Prot- 
estant translators  Chronicles.  The  meaning  of  the 
other  names  on  the  list  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the 
corresponding  words  in  the  English  list. 

A  second  enumeration,  also  noticed  by  St.  Jerome,  ^ 
and  followed  by  some  of  the  Talmudic  doctors,  increases 
the    number   of    books   to    twent3Mour,    the    letter  yod 


1   "Prolog.  Gal.'' 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  1 7 

being  written  three  times  instead  of  once,  as  in  the 
former  case.  This  enumeration  separates  Ruth  from 
Judges,  inserting  it  after  Esther ;  and  Lamentations 
from  Jeremias,  assigning  to  the  former  the  last  place  on 
the  list.  With  these  exceptions  it  was  the  same  as  the 
first,  and  was  adopted  by  many  Greeks,  as  the  number 
of  books  was  thus  made  to  agree  with  the  number  of 
letters  in  their  alphabet.  This  enumeration  was  also 
favorably  regarded  by  some  Latin  writers,  as  they  rec- 
ognized in  it  a  mystical  allusion  to  the  four  and  twenty 
elders  of  the  Apocalypse. 

There  is  still  a  third  enumeration,  which  is  followed 
among  some  of  the  more  modern  Jews,  and  augments 
the  number  of  Books  to  twenty-seven,  by  adding  what 
grammarians  call  the  five  hnial  letters  to  the  tAventy- 
two  of  wdiich  the  Hebrew  alphabet  consists.  Hence 
results  an  arrangement  by  which  Ruth  is  detached 
from  Judges.  Four  distinct  Books  of  Kings  and  two 
separate  Books  of  Paralipomenon  are  thus  obtained,  to- 
gether with  another  by  dividing  into  two  books 
Esdras  and  Nehemias.  In  this  enumeration  Judges  is 
followed  by  Ruth;  then  we  have  Kings  L,  H.,  HL,  IV., 
followed  by  Paralipomenon  I.  and  II.,  after  Avhich 
the  order  is  Esdras,  Nehemias,  Esther,  Job,  Psalter, 
Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticle  of  Canticles,  Isaias, 
Jeremias  with  Lamentations,  Ezechiel,  Daniel,  the 
Prophets. 

The,  Jews  like  the  Christians,  classify  their  Sacred 
Books,  but  in  a  manner  which  seems  vague  as  well  as 
arbitrary.  The  first  intimation  of  any  classification 
whatever  among  them  is  met  with  in  the  Prologue  to 
the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  where  reference  is  made  to 
the  Laiv,  the  Prophets,  and  other  Books.  This  was  about 
two  hundred  and  forty-five  years  before  Christ.  The  fre- 
quent allusions  to  the  Laiv  and  the  Prophets  in  the  New- 
Testament  imply,  at  least,  that  a  distinction  was  made 


i  8  .  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

between  the  Books  of  Moses  (for  these  were  called  the 
Law)  and  those  of  subsequent  writers.  And  the  words 
of  Our  Lord  as  recorded  in  Luke  xxiv.  44,  where  he 
mentions  distinctly  the  Lazv,  the  Prophets,  and  the 
Psalms,  prove  that  in  His  time  a  triple  classification, 
identical  with  that  mentioned  in  the  Prologue  to  Ec- 
clesiasticus,  was  recognized  among  the  Jews  ;  for,  ev- 
idently, by  the  Psalms  Our  Lord  means  those  portions 
of  the  canon  which  the  grandson  of  the  author  of  Ec- 
clesiasticus  included  in  the  otJier  Books.  A  similar 
classification  of  the  Sacred  Books  was  still  made  in  the 
time  of  Josephus,  the  historian.  For,  after  stating  that 
the  Jews  had  twenty -two  Books,  he  adds  that,  "  of  them 
five  belong  to  Moses  ....  the  Prophets,  who  were  after 
Moses,  wrote  down  what  was  done  in  their  own  times 
in  thirteen  books.  The  remaining  four  books  contain 
hymns  to  God  and  precepts  for  the  conduct  of  life."  ' 
The  Jews,  therefore,  in  the  time  of  Josephus,  and  at  least 
for  three  centuries  before  that,  divided  the  Books  of 
their  canon  into  three  classes  :  first,  the  Laiv,  or  Books  of 
Moses  :  second  the  Prophets  ;  third  the  Psalms  or  Hymns, 
which  comprise  the  other  Books,  or  all  not  in  the  other 
two  classes.  St.  Jerome,  who  wrote  three  or  four  cen- 
turies after  Josephus,  testifies  that  in  his  time  the  Jews 
classified  their  books  in  the  same  manner,  for  he  ob- 
serves that  they  called  the  five  Books  of  Moses  TJiora. 
the  Law ;  eight  others  were  composed  of  Prophets,  and 
the  remaining  nine  constituted  the  Hagiographa — sacred 
writings.  ^  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that,  as  the 
word  PropJiet  among  the  Jews  might  mean  not  only  one 
endowed  with  the  strictly  prophetical  spirit,  but  one, 
who,  even  writing  as  a  historian,  was  guided  by  divine 
assistance,  the  number  of  books  in  the  second  class  was 
variable,  a  fact  which  rendered  the  number  in  the  third 
variable  also,   since  the  number  belonging  to  the  first 

'    "  I.   Contra  At>ion.  "  5  8.  -  '' Proio^:'  Gal." 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 


19 


was  always  the  same.  Hence,  though  in  the  time  of 
Josephus  the  books  written  by  prophets  amounted  to 
thirteen,  and  the  hymns  to  but  four,  the  former,  when 
St.  Jerome  wrote,  numbered  only  eight,  while  the  latter, 
corresponding  to  the  Hagiographa,  were  represented 
by  nine.  Modern  Jews  generall}^  divide  the  Books 
thus  :  First,  T/iora,  the  Law  or  five  Books  of  Moses. 
Second,  Neviim — the  Prophets  earlier  and  later.  Third, 
Chetuvini — writings  (sacred),  rendered  Hagiographa  by 
the  Greeks.  But  so  far  as  is  known,  the  following  clas- 
sifications are  all  that  have  been  made  of  their  books  by 
the  Jews. 

EARLIEST    CLASSIFICATION. 


Bo 

oks  of  the 
Law. 

13  Books  by  the             The 
Prophets. 

OTHER  Books :    4  of 
Hymns. 

I. 

Genesis, 

I.  Josue, 

I.  Psalms  of  David, 

2. 

Exodus, 

2.  Judges  and  Ruth, 

2.  Proverbs, 

3. 

Leviticus, 

3.  Samuel, 

3.  Ecclesiastes, 

4- 

Numbers, 

4.   Kings, 

4.  Canticle  of  Canticles^ 

5- 

Deuteronomy. 

5.  Paralipomenon, 

6.  Esdras, 

7.  Esther, 

8.  Job, 

9.  Isaias, 

10.  Jeremias  and  Lamen- 

tations, 

11.  Ezechiel, 

12.  Daniel, 

13.  xii  Minor  Prophets. 

This  is  supposed  to  be  the  most  ancient  classification, 
and  the  one  referred  to  in  the  Prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus, 
the  New  Testament,  and  Josephus.  That  some  books 
were  transferred  subsequently  from  the  second  to  the 
third  class,  thus  causing  a  different  distribution,  is  evi- 
dent from  the  catalogue  given  by  St.  Jerome  in  his  Prol. 
Gal.,  and  in  which  is  found  this — 


20 


The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 


SECOND  OR  LATER  CLASSIFICATION. 


Thora:  5  Books 

1.  Genesis, 

2.  Exodus. 

3.  Leviticus, 

4.  Numbers, 

5.  Deuteronomy. 


Neviim:  8  Books. 


1.  Josue, 

2.  Judges  and  Ruth, 

3.  Samuel, 

4.  Melachim, 

5.  Isaias,  [tations, 

6.  Jeremias  with  Lamen 

7.  Ezechiel, 

8.  .\ii  Minor  Prephets, 


Chetuvim:  9  Books. 
I.  Job, 


2.  Psahns, 

3.  Proverbs, 

4.  Ecclesiastes, 

5.  Canticle  of  Canticles. 

6.  Daniel, 

7.  Paralipomenon, 

8.  L  &  lI.Esdras, 


9.  Esther. 

This  classification  is  known  to  have  been  used  as  ear- 
ly as  the  fourth  century  after  Christ,  and  to  have  been 
followed  for  two  or  three  centuries  afterwards.  Like 
the  first,  it  divided  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  twenty- 
two  Books,  but  it  w^as  adopted  even  by  those  who 
reckoned  the  number  of  books  at  twenty-four,  and  who 
reached  that  result  by  detaching  Ruth  from  Judges  and 
Lamentations  from  Jeremias,  and  placing  them  at  the 
end  of  the  Hagiographa,  which  was  thus  increased  to 
eleven.  From  the  preceding  classification  it  appears 
that  Daniel  in  the  course  of  time  was  transferred  from 
the  Prophets  to  the  Hagiographa,  for  the  very  ques- 
tionable reason  that  he  was  by  profession  not  a  prophet 
but  a  courtier. 

THIRD  CLASSIFICATION. 
The  Law:  5  books.  The  Prophets:  8  books.  Hagiographa:  ii  books. 

1.  Genesis,  6.  Josue,  14-  Psalms, 

2.  Exodus,  7.  Judges,  15.  Proverbs, 

3.  Leviticus,  8.    Samuel,  16.  Job, 

4.  Numbers,  •    9.   Melachim,  17.  Canticle  of  Can- 

5.  Deuteronomy.  10    Isaias,  tides, 

11.  Jeremias,  18.  Ruth, 

12.  Ezechiel,  19.  Lamentations, 

13.  xii  Minor  Prophets.  20.   Ecclesiastes, 

21.  Esther, 

22.  Daniel, 

23.  Esdras  and  Nehemias, 

24.  Paralipomenon. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Test  anient . 


21 


This  classification  is  now  very  generally  followed  by 
the  Jews,  and  is  found  in  all  the  Hebrew  editions  of  the 
Bible.  In  many  of  these  editions  twenty-seven  distinct 
books  are  enumerated,  a  result  that  is  attained  by  divid- 
ing Samuel  and  Melachim  each  into  two  books,  and 
separating  Nehemias  from  Esdras.  This  much  regard- 
ing the  manner  in  which  the  Books  in  the  Hebrew  canon 
are  divided  and  classified. 

With  regard  to  the  origin  and  antiquity  of  their  canon 
the  Jews  themselves  entertain  no  doubt,  though  their 
belief  on  either  point  has  not  met  with  general  accept- 
ance. This  much,  however,  is  certain,  that  Cyrus,  king 
of  Persia,  by  a  public  edict  permitted  such  of  the  captive 
Jews  as  wished  to  avail  themselves  of  the  privilege  to 
return  to  their  own  country  and  rebuild  their  temple. 
A  vast  multitude  of  them,  therefore,  assembled  together, 
and  under  the  conduct  of  Zorobabel  arrived  at  Jerusa- 
lem, 536  B.  C,  and  commenced  to  restore  divine  worship. 
Hardly,  however,  had  they  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
temple,  when  they  were  compelled  to  desist  from  the 
undertaking  by  the  opposition  of  their  enemies,  the 
Samaritans;  and  it  was  not  until  515  B.  C.  that  the 
building  was  completed.  Through  the  influence  which 
he  possessed  at  the  Persian  Court,  Esdras,  who  is  de- 
scribed as  a  "  Priest— a  ready  scribe  in  the  law  of  Moses, 
instructed  in  the  words  and  commandments  of  the  Lord 
and  His  ceremonies  in  Israel,"  ^  obtained  permission  from 
Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  457  B.  C,  to  lead  back  another 
colony  of  his  countrymen  to  their  native  land,  and  there, 
in  the  name  of  the  king  of  Persia,  assume  control  in  all 
matters,  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical.  Ten  years  after- 
wards Nehemias,  another  distinguished  Jewish  exile, 
was  commissioned  by  the  same  monarch  to  rebuild  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem.  In  the  performance  of  this  task  he 
exhibited  great  energy  and  tact,  and  along  with  Esdras, 

'  Esdras  vii.  6,-ii, 


22  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

whose  confidence  and  co-operation  he  enjoyed,  labored 
to  improve  the  condition  of  the  people  and  to  restore 
respect  for  the  laws  of  Moses. 

After  the  walls  had  been  rebuilt,  the  people  came 
together  and  requested  Esdras  to  read  for  them  "  the 
book  of  the  law  of  Moses."  '  And  he  continued  to  do  so 
during  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  which  they  celebrated 
at  that  time.  There  were  present  on  that  occasion, 
along  with  Nehemias  and  others,  Aggeus,  Zacharias, 
and  at  a  later  period  Malachias,  who  all  rendered  con- 
siderable assistance  to  Esdras  and  Nehemias  in  re-estab- 
lishing the  Jewish  commonwealth.  All  that  is  here 
stated  is  derived  from  information  supplied  by  the 
writings  of  Esdras  and  Nehemias,  11.  Paralipomenon, 
and  the  prophecies  of  Agg^eus  and  Zacharias.  Day  by 
day,  during  the  seven  days  that  the  feast  lasted,  Esdras 
read  and  interpreted  the  words  of  the  Law  to  the  people.' 
So  far  as  can  be  inferred  from  the  testimony  of  the  sa- 
cred record  itself,  Esdras  neither  then,  nor  at  any  other 
time,  had  anything  more  to  do  with  the  Scriptures  than 
what  is  implied  by  reading  and  explaining  them.  The 
universal  belief  of  the  Jews,  however,  attributes  to  him 
a  work  far  more  important  than  that  with  which  he  is 
credited  in  the  inspired  narrative.  For  they  allege  that 
when  sent  to  Jerusalem  he  there  not  only  read  and  inter- 
preted the  Book  of  the  Law  to  the  people,  but  exerted 
all  his  energies  in  collecting,  correcting,  and  arranging 
the  sacred  writings,  so  as  to  form  them  into  one 
authoritative  record  or  canon  of  Scripture,  which,  being 
then  submitted  by  him  to  the  judgment  of  the  great 
Sanhedrim  or  Council,  was  by  that  body  confirmed 
and  declared  closed  ;  so  that  nothing  afterwards  could 
be  taken  therefrom,  or  ever  again  be  added  thereto. 
Divested  of  many  highl}^  improbable  details,  which  will 
be    noticed    presently,  such  is  the  account  which  the 

'  Nehemias  viii.  I.  2  ibid.  ix.  18, 


Tkc  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstauicut.  23 

Jews  give  of  the  manner  and  occasion  in  which  their 
canon  was  settled. 

Probably  the  earliest  reference  to  the  connection  of 
Esdras  with  the  formation  of  the  Hebrew  canon  occurs 
in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  the  apocryphal  book  IV. 
Esdras,  written  according  to  most  critics  in  the  first  or 
second  century  after  Christ,  but  most  probably  by  a  Jew 
in  the  first  century,  and  soon  after  retouched  by  a 
Christian.  It  professes  to  have  been  written  by  Esdras, 
the  scribe  and  author  of  I.  Esdras,  to  whom  the  Jews 
ascribe  the  formation  of  their  canon.  The  writer  says, 
he  was  favored  with  a  visitation  from  the  Lord,  in  an- 
swer to  whom  he  promises  that  he  will  go  and  rebuke 
the  people  ;  "  but  "  asks  ''  who  shall  admonish  those  who 
are  born  in  the  meantime  ;  therefore  is  the  world  placed 
in  darkness,  and  those  who  live  in  it  without  light.  For 
Thy  law  has  been  burned,  wherefore  no  one  knows  what 
has  been  done  by  Thee,  or  what  works  shall  commence. 
For,  if  I  have  found  favor  with  Thee,  instil  into  me  Thy 
holy  spirit  ;  and  I  will  write  all  that  has  been  done  in 
the  world  from  the  beginning ;  what  was  written  as 
Thy  law,  that  men  may  be  able  to  find  the  way,  and 
those  who  wish  to  live  in  the  latter  end  may  live." 
Then  he  is  directed  to  assemble  the  people,  and  tell 
them  that  they  should  not  look  for  him  for  forty  days. 
He  is  also  told  to  prepare  many  tablets,  and  to  take 
with  him  "  Sareas,  Dabrias,  Salemias,  Echanus,  and 
Asiel,  these  five,  who  could  write  rapidly.  "And  come 
hither,"  saith  the  Lord,  "  and  I  will  enkindle  in  your 
heart  the  lamp  of  imderstanding,  which  will  not  be  ex- 
tinguished until  what  you  commence  to  write  shall  be 
finished.  And  then,  all  being  completed,  some  thou 
shalt  publish,  some  thou  shalt  deliver  secretly  to  wise 
men,  for  to-morrow  at  this  hour  thou  shalt  commence 
to  write."  So  the  people  are  called  together  and  exhort- 
ed bv  Esdras  ;  then  he  tells  them  not  to  come  or  ask  for 


24  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

him  for  forty  days.  And  he  took  with  him  the  five  men, 
and  with  them  withdrew  into  a  plain  or  field  (campus). 
There  he  is  presented  with  "a  cup  full  as  it  were  of  wa- 
ter, but  in  color  similar  to  fire."  This  he  drank,  and  as 
he  did  so  "  his  heart  was  tormented  with  understanding, 
and  his  breast  increased  by  wisdom.  For  his  spirit  was 
preserved  by  memory.  And  his  mouth  was  opened, 
and  no  more  shut.  The  Most  High  gave  understanding 
to  the  five  men,  and  the  ecstasies  of  the  night  that  were 
spoken  thev  wrote,  but  knew  not,  but  at  night  they  ate 
bread."  "  But  I,"  says  Esdras,  "  spoke  by  day,  and  at 
night  was  not  silent."  And  during  the  forty  days  there 
were  written  204  books.  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  when 
the  forty  days  were  accomplished,  the  Most  High  spoke, 
saying :  the  first  that  thou  hast  written  give  to  the  pub- 
lic, that  the  worthv  and  unworthy  may  read.  But  the 
last  seventy  thou  shalt  keep,  that  thou  ma3'est  deliver 
them  to  the  wise  men  of  the  people.  For  in  them  is  a 
vein  of  knowledge,  and  a  fount  of  wisdom,  and  a  river  of 
knowledge.     And  I  did  so." 

Although  it  was  certain  that  there  was  extant  about 
the  close  of  the  second  centuiy  a  Greek  copy  of  IV.  Es- 
dras, for  it  was  quoted  even  as  the  work  of  "  Esdras  the 
Prophet"  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,'  it  was  not  known 
until  the  eighteenth  century  that  there  still  existed  anv 
copy  except  that  which  was  preserved  in  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate of  the  Bible, and  is  the  source  whence  the  preced- 
ing statement  has  been  derived.  Since  then,  however, 
Arabic,  Syriac,  Ethiopic,  and  Armenian  copies  of  the 
book  have  been  found,  yet  differing  considerably  from 
the  Latin  version.  To  enter  into  a  discussion  about  the 
age  or  origin  of  the  book  would  be  out  of  place  here, 
especially  as  it  could  lead  to  no  certain  conclusion  ;  and 
it  need  only  be  remarked  that,  while  most  critics  suppose 
It  to  have  been  written  at  some  early  date  within  the 

'   Strom,  iii.  c.  xvi. 


Tlie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  25 

Christian  period,  a  few  are  of  opinion  that  it  was  origin- 
ally composed  in  Hebrew  or  Chaldee,  even  before  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  era.  But  all  are  agreed 
that  the  original,  whatever  that  was,  has  been  better 
preserved  in  the  oriental  copies  than  in  the  one  with 
which  Western  Christians  have  been  familiar  ;  and  that, 
at  least,  in  the  Ethiopic  version  there  are  not  those  evi- 
dences of  Christian  authorship,  which  appear  in  the  Latin. 
Now,  should  any  one  conclude,  after  reading  the  book 
through,  that  there  is  much  in  it  with  a  strong  rabbin- 
ical flavor,  he  will  be  further  confirmed  in  that  belief, 
when  informed  that  according  to  all  the  oriental  copies 
(the  Ethiopic  alone  admitting  variations  in  the  figures) 
the  number  of  books  written  during  the  forty  days  was 
not  204,  but  94.  Then  let  him  remember,  that  of  the 
whole  number  written,  70  \vere  to  be  reserved  for  pri- 
vate use,  leaving  for  publication  just  24,  a  number  ex- 
pressly stated  in  the  Syriac  and  Arabic,  but  omitted  in 
the  Ethiopic  and  Armenian  as  well  as  the  Latin  ;  and 
that  24  is  often  the  number  of  books  found  in  the  He- 
brew canon  :  or  let  him  suppose  that  70  here  stands  for 
72,  just  as  Ikx  universally  indicates  the  72  translators  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Greek  ;  then  let  him  deduct 
this  from  the  whole  number  said  to  have  been  written 
by  Pseudo  Esdras,  and  he  will  have  the  famous  22  of 
the  rabbinical  doctors.  At  least  he  will  then  have 
some  reason  for  believing,  that  he  has  found  in  IV.  Es- 
dras the  earliest  written  account  of  the  attempt  made  by 
the  Jews  to  attribute  to  Esdras  the  Scribe  the  honor  of 
restoring  the  lost  contents  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of 
closing  the  canon  of  Scripture. 

What  degree  of  credit  was  given  to  this  account 
among  the  primitive  Christians,  it  were  hard  to  say  ; 
nor  is  it  certain  that  a  similar  tradition  was  cherished 
among  contemporary  Jews,  although  several  grave  con- 
siderations leave  scarcely  any  reason  to  doubt  it.      The 


26  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

author  of  IV.  Esdras  unmistakably  betrays  his  Jewish 
extraction  ;  and  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  he  wrote 
otherwise  than  his  coreligionists  believed  at  the  time. 
Esdras  the  Scribe  is  still  believed  by  the  Jews  to  have 
pla3-ed  by  far  the  most  important  part  in  making  their 
canon  what  it  is.  Exaggerated,  if  not  fabulous,  state- 
ments in  reference  to  the  affair  have  been  put  forth  by 
Jewish  writers,  as  the  sequel  will  show.  And  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  they  are  responsible  for  many  of  the  in- 
credible details,  which  render  the  account  of  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Greek  quite  pre- 
posterous. In  fact,  the  writer  of  that  account,  Aris- 
teas,  judged  by  his  own  statements,  was  himself  a  Jew. 
There  is  therefore  strong  presumptive  evidence  for  insist- 
ing, not  only  that  IV.  Esdras  was  written  by  a  Jew,  but 
that  the  book  expressed  the  belief  held  by  the  Jews  at  the 
time  regarding  the  manner  in  which  their  canon  had  been 
formed. 

But  whether  they  were  influenced  by  the  account  of 
Pseudo  Esdras,  or  a  similar  tradition  prevailing  among 
the  Jews  at  the  time,  it  is  certain  that  some  of  the  early 
Christian  Fathers  believed  that  at  the  end  of  the  Baby- 
lonian captivit}^  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  if  they  had 
not  utterly  disappeared,  were  seriously  mutilated  or 
corrupted,  and  that  Esdras  the  Scribe  restored  them  to 
their  former  condition.  As  quoted  by  Eusebius,  Ire- 
Uceus,  who  lived  in  the  second  century,  states,  "  that 
God  ....  in  the  captivity  of  the  people  under  Nabu- 
chodonosor,  when  the  Scriptures  had  been  corrupted, 
and  the  Jews  were  returning  to  their  own  country  after 
seventy  years,  subsequently,  in  the  time  of  Artaxerxes, 
King  of  the  Persians,  inspired  Esdras,  a  priest  of  the 
tribe  of  Levi,  to  set  in  order  again  all  the  discourses  of 
the  preceding  Prophets,  and  restore  complete  to  the 
people  the  legislation  by  Moses."  '      Clement  of  Alexan- 

'   "  Eccl.  Hist.,''  lib.  v.,  c.  viii. 


TJic  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Tcstaiiicnt.  27 

dria,  who  wrote  about  the  end  of  the  same  century,  as- 
serts,' "  that  when  in  the  captivity  of  Nabuchodonosor 
the  Scriptures  were  corrupted,  in  the  time  of  Artaxerx- 
es,  King  of  the  Persians,  Esdras  the  Levite,  who  was  a 
priest,  being  inspired,  forthwith  prophetically  restored 
all  the  ancient  Scriptures."  Tertullian,  ^  who  lived 
within  the  following  century,  declares  that  "  when 
Jerusalem  was  destroyed  by  the  Babylonians,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  entire  instrument  of  Jewish  literature  was 
restored  by  Esdras."  In  the  Athanasian  Synopsis  it  is 
said  that  "  this  is  also  related  of  Esdras,  when  the  books 
had  perished  through  the  negligence  of  the  people  and 
the  long  captivity,  he  being  an  industrious  and  well  dis- 
posed man,  and  a  reader,  kept  them  all  in  his  possession, 
and  at  last  brought  them  forth,  and  delivered  them  to 
all,  and  thus  preserved  them."  And  referring  to  the 
Psalms,  the  author  of  the  Synopsis  further  observes 
that  "  Esdras  formed  into  one  book  all  these  Psalms  by 
w^homsoever  written."  St.  John  Chrysostom,"*  who  died 
in  407,  says,  that  in  the  calamities  w^hich  befell  the  Jews 
"  the  records  were  burnt  ;  but  God  again  inspired  an- 
other admirable  man,  I  mean  Esdras,  to  publish  them, 
and  caused  them  to  be  composed  out  of  what  w^ere 
left."  Even  St.  Jerome "  who  died  a  few  years  later,  was 
not  unwilling  that  Esdras  should  be  called  "  the  restorer 
of  the  Pentateuch."  Whether  more  is  meant  by  this  than 
what  is  implied  in  the  Saint's  statements,  that  Esdras 
"  invented  other  (Hebrew)  letters,  which  we  now  use,  * 
Is  uncertain.  In  the  same  century  Theodoret''  wrote 
thus  :  "  For,  when  the  Scriptures  partly  under  Manas- 
ses were  burned,  partly  in  the  time  of  the  captiv- 
ity   utterly  perished,  the  blessed  Esdras,  a  man  ex- 
celling in  virtue,  and,  as  the  affair  itself  declares,  filled 

•   "  5'/^tfw.,"  lib.  i.,  c.  xxii.  ^  '■*  De  cult.  Fism.,^'\ih  i.,  c,  iiL 

3  J/i^m.  via.  in  Ep.  ad  Hebr.  ••  *'  Adv.  He  hid!''  %  7. 

•^   ''•  Prol.  Gai:'  6  "  Explan.  in  Cant.,''  Fraf. 


28  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

by  the  Holy  Ghost,  wrote  out  for  us  the  necessary  and 
salubrious  Scriptures,  not  only  the  books  of  Moses,  but 
Josue  also.  If,  therefore,  Esdras  composed  them,  tran- 
scribing not  another  copy,  but  filled  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
how  could  it  happen  that  this  book  should  contain  that 
argument  which  you  affirm?  "  Leontius  of  Byzantium, 
who  belonged  to  the  sixth  century,  has  this  account  of 
the  matter:  "Esdras,  when  he  came  to  Jerusalem,  and 
found  that  all  the  books  were  burned  when  they  were 
carried  into  captivity,  is  said  to  have  composed  from 
memory  the  22  books,  which  we  have  enumerated 
above."  '  In  the  following  century  St.  Isidore  of  Seville 
wrote,  that  "  after  the  Law  had  been  burned  by  the 
Chaldeans,  Esdras  the  Scribe,  when  the  Jews  returned 
to  Jerusalem,  being  inspired  by  the  divine  Spirit,  re- 
paired the  library  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  corrected 
all  the  volumes  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  which  had 
been  corrupted  by  the  Gentiles,  and  divided  the  Old 
Testament  into  22  books,  that  there  might  be  as  many 
books  in  the  Law  as  there  were  letters."  ' 

All  these  statements  put  together  go  to  show  that  from 
the  second  to  the  seventh  century  it  was  the  belief,  at 
least  of  some  among  the  most  learned  Christian  writers 
belonging  to  that  period,  that,  by  reason  of  the  calamities 
through  which  the  Jews  had  passed,  it  was  found  that  on 
their  return  from  the  captivity  of  Babylon  not  only  was 
the  integrity  of  the  Old  Testament,  so  far  as  it  had  been 
completed,  seriously  affected,  but  its  contents  were  mu- 
tilated, corrupted,  burned — in  fact,  irrecoverably  lost  ; 
but  that  Esdras  the  Scribe,  by  divine  assistance,  was  en- 
abled to  restore  them  to  their  former  condition.  A  story 
that  is  thus  traced  back  to  almost  the  first  century,  and 
in  the  fabrication  of  which  a  Christian  could  have  had 
no  interest,  must  have  had  a  Jewish  origin,  though  when 
and  by  whom  the  story  was  started  it  may  be  impossible 

'  '■'  De  Sectis."  Actio  ii.  *J.  viii.  2  <■'  Etymol."  L.  vi,  c.  iii. 


The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament.  29. 

to  say.  Of  the  several  writers  who  have  reproduced  it  in 
one  form  or  another, — and  almost  all  of  them  have  been 
cited  above, — there  is  but  one,  St.  Basil,  of  the  fourth 
century,  who  evidently  told  it  with  IV.  Esdras  before  him. 
"  Here,"  says  he,  while  referring  to  the  Holy  Land  in  his 
epistle  to  Chilo,  "is  t\\Q plain  in  which  Esdras,  after  re- 
tiring from  the  rest,  by  the  command  of  God  belched 
forth  all  the  divinely  inspired  books."  But  whether  the 
belief  of  the  other  writers,  who  testify  to  the  miraculous 
restoration  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  by  Esdras  the 
Scribe,  was  based  on  the  account  of  Esdras  IV.,  or  on  a 
similar  fable  originating  with  the  Jews  and  adopted  by 
the  early  Christians,  but  the  record  of  which  is  no  long- 
er preserved  among  the  former,  that  belief  must  be 
discarded  as  utterly  unfounded.  For  it  is  certain,  that 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Babylonian  captivity  all  existing 
copies  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  not  destroyed. 
It  was  other  treasures  than  those  stowed  away  in  He- 
brew libraries  that  the  conquerors  coveted.  At  least 
there  is  no  intimation  in  the  inspired  account  of  the 
captivity,  that  the  captives  were  despoiled  of  their 
sacred  literature,  or  were  prevented  from  carrying  the 
rolls  that  contained  it  to  their  new  homes.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  clearly  implied  that,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  carelessness  of  the  Jews  about  the  preservation  of 
their  Scriptures,  or  the  efforts  of  their  enemies  for  the 
destruction  of  those  Scriptures,  some  of  the  exiles  not 
only  preserved  copies  of  these  precious  records,  but 
must  have  devoted  much  time  to  the  study  of  their 
contents.  Daniel  must  have  had  such  a  copy,  for  he  re- 
fers not  onl}^  to  the  prophecy  of  Jeremias,  but  to  "  the 
maledictions  and  the  curse,  which  is  written  in  the  Book 
of  Moses."  '  Besides,  for  57  )-ears  before  the  time  when 
Esdras,  according  to  the  story,  restored  the  Scriptures, 
the  Priests  and  Levites  were  performing  their  respective 

'  Dan.  ix.  2-I1. 


30  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstavicnt. 

functions  in  the  new  temple  at  Jerusalem,  "  as  it  is  writ- 
ten in  the  Book  of  Moses."  '  But  how  could  they  do 
so  unless  they  had  the  book  ?  And.  if  the  story  be  true, 
how  is  it  that  Esdras,  even  while  at  Babylon,  was  known 
to  be  "a  ready  scribe  in  the  law  of  Moses."  ""  Even  the 
very  passage '  on  the  sole  strength  of  which  it  is  possible 
to  argue  that  Esdras  restored  all  the  books  of  the  Script- 
ure when  no  longer  in  existence,  exposes  the  absurdity 
of  that  supposition,  for  there  the  people  are  said  to  have 
asked  "  Esdras  the  Scribe  to  bring  the  Book  of  the  Law 
of  Moses,  which  the  Lord  had  commanded  to  Israel," 
words  which  prove  that  the  book  was  still  well  known 
to  the  people  themselves,  or  at  least  that  they  knew  it 
was  then  extant.  It  is  certain  also  that  Tobias,  who  was 
not  a  priest,  nor  a  scribe,  nor  a  Levite,  but  a  simple  cap- 
tive belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Nephthali,  was  familiar 
with  the  writings  of  the  prophets.  *  If  therefore,  not- 
withstanding all  reasonable  presumption  to  the  contrary, 
the  positive  order  of  Moses  regarding  the  constant 
study  of  the  law  by  the  Hebrew  rulers,  ^  and  the  read- 
ing of  it  every  seven  years  by  the  priests  to  the  peo- 
ple, "  had  been  all  along  disregarded ;  and  though  it 
were  not  on  record  that  at  least  on  one  occasion  the 
princes  and  Levites  went  forth  with  the  Book  of  the  Law 
of  the  Lord  to  instruct  the  people  in  all  the  cities  of  Ju- 
dea, '  yet  there  is  evidence  sufficient  in  the  Esdrine  and 
other  canonical  books  belonging  to  the  same  period  to 
place  it  beyond  all  doubt, that  at  the  time  of  the  captiv- 
ity the  Sacred  Scriptures  still  survived,  that  the  people 
were  by  no  means  ignorant  of  their  contents  and  there- 
fore that  the  supposition  that  Esdras,  whether  assisted 
by  God  or  not,  dictated  them  all  from  memory,  after 
they  had  utterl)^  perished,  is  wholly  false  and  unwar- 

1  Esdras  vi.  1 8.  2  Ibid.  vii.  6. 

3  Neb.  viii.  1—8.  ■*  Tob.  ii.  6;  xiv.  6. 

•'■  Deut.  xvii.  19.         ^  Ibid.  xxxi.  lo,  il.         ''   II.  Partvl.  xvii.  7-9. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  31 

ranted.  Finally,  how,  it  may  be  asked,  was  it  possi- 
ble for  Cyrus,  King-  of  Persia,  to  have  obtained  a  copy  of 
the  prophecy  of  Isaias,  as  Josephus  '  has  stated,  if  the 
Sacred  Scriptures  had  entirely  disappeared  ?  This  single 
fact  would  ot  itself  effectually  disprove  the  supposition 
in  question. 
'  'M«//^.,"  lib.  xi.,  c.  r.,  §  2. 


CHAPTER  III. 


Belief  of  the  Jews  regarding  the  Origin  of  their 

Canon. 

The  Jews,  in  ascribing  the  formation  of  their  canon 
to  Esdras,  appeal  to  a  tradition  based  on  certain  state- 
ments in  their  Talmud  (Doctrine).  This  work  consists 
of  two  parts,  one  called  the  Mishna  (repetition),  the 
other  the  Geraara  (completion  or  supplement).  The 
Mishna  contains  the  oral  law  ;  for  the  Jews  believe,  without 
however  the  slightest  authority  from  the  Scripture,  that 
besides  the  written  law  Moses  also  received  at  the  same 
time  on  Mount  Sinai  an  oral  or  unwritten  law,  which 
was  the  interpretation  of  the  written  law,  and  constitutes 
the  text  of  the  Talmud.  This  interpretation  was  in- 
trusted by  Moses  to  Josue,  who  in  turn  consigned  it 
to  the  seventy  elders,  from  whom  it  was  received  by 
the  prophets,  who  transmitted  it  to  the  members  of  the 
Sanhedrim  or  Great  Synagogue,  from  whom  it  passed 
into  the  custody  of  the  Rabbins,  who,  on  the  final  dis- 
persion of  the  Jews,  as  it  was  no  longer  possible  to 
preserve  it  by  oral  tradition,  committed  it  to  writing, 
lest  it  might  be  irretrievably  lost.  The  Gemara 
consists  of  a  series  of  commentaries  on  the  Mishna  by 
several  Rabbins,  who  wrote,  some  in  Judea,  some  in 
Babylon.  The  commentaries  by  the  former  constitute 
what  is  called  the  Jerusalem  Geraara ;  those  by  the 
latter  belong  to  what  is  known  as  the  Babylonian 
Gemara.     There  are  therefore  two  Talmuds,  the  Jeru- 

32 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  33 

salem  and  the  Babylonian,  having  the  same  Mishna  or 
text,    but   different    Gemaras   or   commentaries.      The 
Jerusalem  Talmud  was  completed  about  the  third  cen- 
tury of  our  era  ;  the  other  not  until  a  later  period.    The 
entire  work    extends  over  twelve  folio  volumes,  and  is 
regarded  by  the  Jews  as  an  authoritative  exposition  of 
their  religious  belief  and  practice.     Indeed,  in  contrast- 
ing it  with  the  law   written  in  the   Pentateuch,    they 
attach  a  far  higher  value  to  the  former,  although  there 
is  nothing  in  their  canonical  Scriptures,  or  in  human 
history,  to  justify  what  is  said  of  its  origin  or  preserva- 
tion ;  while  at  the  same  time  it  abounds  in  statements 
derogatory  to  the  majesty  of  God,  narratives  remarkable 
for  their  absurdity,  and  questions  as  profane  and  impious 
as  they  are  puerile  and  ludicrous.     Whether  the  Talmud 
be  an  outgrowth  of  the  fable  contained  in  IV.  Esdras 
may   never    be   determined;    but  the  written  and    un- 
written law,  the  idea  which  serves  as  the  basis  of  the 
former  work,  must  remind  the  reader  of  the  distinctions 
made  by  Pseudo  Esdras  between  the  books  which  he 
wrote,  some  being  for  general  use,  others  for  the  benefit 
of  a  special  class. 

The  tradition  which  ascribes  to  Esdras  the  credit  of 
having  drawn  up  a  canon  is  traced  to  a  statement  in  one 
of  the  oldest  tracts  of  the  Talmud,  the  Pirke  Aboth 
(chapter  of  Fathers),  which  refers  to  the  Jewish  Fathers, 
who  are  supposed  to  have  handed  down  the  oral  law, 
and  in  which  it  is  said :  "  Moses  received  the  law  from 
Mount  Sinai,  and  delivered  it  to  Josue,  Josue  to  the 
elders,  the  elders  to  the  prophets,  and  the  prophets 
delivered  it  to  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue.  These 
last  spake  these  words:  'Be  cautious  in  pronouncing 
judgment ;  make  many  disciples  ;  put  a  hedge  about  the 
law.'  "  If  these  last  words  refer  to  the  entire  body  of 
Scripture,  they  would  seem  to  indicate  a  closing  of  the 
canon,   though    when    or   where    is   not    stated.     The 


34  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

same  statement  is  repeated  with  more  minuteness  in 
another  tract,  belonging  to  the  Babylonian  Gemara,  and 
entitled  Baba  Bathra  (last  gate).  There  the  statement 
takes  this  form  :  "  Who  wrote  the  sacred  books?  Moses 
wrote  his  own  book,  and  the  section  of  Balaam  and 
Job  ;  Josiie  wrote  his  own  book  and  eight  verses  in  the 
law  ;  David  wrote  the  book  of  Psalms  by  the  ten  elders, 
by  Adam  first,  by  Melchisedech,  by  Abraham,  by  Moses, 
by  Heman,  by  Iduthiin,  by  Asaph,  by  the  three  children 
of  Kore  ;  Jeremias  wrote  his  own  book,  the  Book  of 
Kings,  and  Lamentations ;  Ezechiel  and  his  college 
wrote  Isaias,  Proverbs,  Canticles,  and  Ecclesiastes ;  the 
men  of  the  Great  Synagogue  wrote  Ezechiel,  the  twelve 
prophets,  David,  and  the  book  of  Esther  ;  Esdras  wrote 
his  own  book,  and  brought  the  genealogies  of  Parali- 
pomenon  down  to  his  own  times.  And  this  is  confirmed 
by  the  word  of  a  master ;  for  Rab  Juda  says  that 
he  heard  from  a  Master  that  Esdras  did  not  go  up 
from  Babylon  before  he  brought  the  genealogies  down 
to  his  own  age,  but  that  he  then  went  up.  Who  fin- 
ished them  (the  genealogies)?  Nehemias,  the  son  of 
Helcias." 

If  the  word  wrote,  wherever  it  occurs  in  the  preceding 
extract,  be  taken  to  express  the  act  on  account  of  which 
one  is  considered  not  a  copyist  or  compiler,  but  the 
author  of  a  book,  many  of  the  statements  made  therein 
are  simply  incredible.  But  as  the  Hebrew  word,  which 
has  been  rendered  zvrote,  may  in  the  opinion  of  Hebrew 
scholars  mean  what  is  done  in  arransfinsr,  transcribins:, 
or  editing  what  has  already  been  written  by  another,  it 
will  then  be  possible  to  explain  the  extract  in  such  a 
way  that,  even  if  it  be  not  a  record  of  actual  facts,  what 
it  states  may  be  accepted  as  not  absolutely  improbable. 
Even  so,  however,  it  is  difficult  to  discern  therein  any 
reference  to  a  canon  of  Scripture,  or  an  authoritative 
collection  of  sacred  books  by  Esdras  or  anv  one  else. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  lest  anient.  35 

He.  like  several  others,  is  represented,  as  a  writer,  copyist, 
compiler,  or  commentator  ;  and  Nehemias,  not  Esdras, 
is  mentioned  as  the  last  who  had  anything-  to  do  with 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  for  the  genealogies,  which  he 
is  said  to  have  "  finished,"  have  been  brought  down  to 
the  latest  date  contained  in  those  Scriptures.  Every 
name  mentioned  in  the  extract  is  that  of  a  writer  or 
compiler  of  some  particular  book  or  books;  but  not  one 
among  them  is  said  to  have  written,  compiled,  edited, 
or  collected  together  all  the  books  referred  to,  so  that, 
so  far  as  the  Talmud  is  concerned,  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe  that  Esdras  drew  up  or  took  any  part  in 
drawing  up  a  canon  of  Scripture. 

Tt  would  appear  that,  on  the  strength  of  the  Talmud's 
testimon}'  alone,  some  rabbinical  scholars,  Elias  Levita,  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  others  who  flourished  subse- 
quently to  the  completion  of  the  Talmud,  assert  that  Es- 
dras had  around  him  a  college  of  120  eminent  scholars  for 
the  purpose  of  assisting  him  in  collecting  and  arranging 
the  sacred   books.     Among  the  members  were  Daniel 
the  prophet  with  his  three  companions  Misac,  Sidrac, 
and  Abdenago,  Aggteus,  Zacharias,  Simon  the  Just,  and 
Esdras  himself,  who,  according  to  a  rabbinical  opinion, 
was  the  same  with  the  Prophet   Malachias,  and  the  first 
president  of  the  college,  as  Simon  the  Just  was  the  last. 
This  college  was  in  fact  the  Great  Synagogue  or  San- 
hedrim, so  it  is  said  ;  and  it  is  further  stated  that  all  its 
members  were  living  at  the  same  time,  under  the  reio-n 
of  Darius   Hystaspes,  King  of  Persia,  identical,  as  the 
Rabbins  think,  with  Darius  Codomanus,  whom  Alexan- 
der the  Great  subdued,  and  also  with  Artaxerxes,  who 
sent  Esdras  and  Nehemias  to  Jerusalem.     These  Jewish 
doctors  furthermore  maintain  that  Simon  the  Just  was 
that  Jeddoa  the  High  Priest,  sometimes  written  Jadus 
or  Jaddua,  who,  according  to  Josephus,'  met  and  escorted 

'  Aniiq.,  B.  xi.,  c.  viii.,  %  5. 


36  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Alexander  the  Great  into  Jerusalem.'  Now,  wnatever 
ma}^  be  said  of  the  relation  between  Esdras  and  the 
Hebrew  canon,  these  and  similar  statements  may  be 
ranked  among  the  collection  of  fables  contained  in  the 
Talmud  and  the  works  of  rabbinical  writers.  For  if 
these  statements  were  entitled  to  belief,  it  would  follow 
that  the  Persian  empire  lasted  only  52  years  instead  of 
209 ;  '  that  Daniel  must  have  lived  considerably  more 
than  250  years;  that  Simon  the  Just,  after  becoming  a 
member  of  the  Great  Synagogue  about  453  B.  C,  when 
he  was  at  least  thirty  years  of  age,  lived  until  292  B.  C, 
thus  dying  at  the  age  of  191.  To  maintain  that  the  first 
year  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  was  separated  from  the  last  in 
that  of  Darius  Codomanus  by  only  52  years;  that  Es- 
dras, Daniel,  Misac,  Sidrac,  Abdenago,  Aggaeus,  Zacha- 
rias,  and  Simon  the  Just  were  all  contemporary  with  the 
return  from  Babylon,  and  survived  until  the  time  of 
Alexander  the  Great;  that  Simon  the  Just  even  outlived 
Alexander  by  32  years,  for  the  latter  died  324  B.  C, 
whereas  the  death  of  the  former,  according  to  rabbini- 
cal chronology,  occurred  in  292  B.  C. — to  maintain  all 
these  points  which  are  either  contained  in,  or  follow  from 
the  statements  of  many  rabbinical  writers,  is,  it  mav 
well  be  said,  to  disregard  not  onl)'  the  teaching  of  hu- 
man experience,  but  the  concurrent  testimon}-  of  sacred 
and  profane  histor3\  Furthermore,  the  substance  of  the 
rabbinical  tradition  is  that  Esdras  is  the  author  of  the 
canon,  he  having  revised,  arranged,  and  determined  the 
books  of  which  it  is  composed,  with  or  without  the 
sanction  of  the  Great  Synagogue.  Yet  that  this  was 
not  the  case  is  directly  implied  by  the  same  tradition, 
for,  according  to  it,  Simon  the  Just  completed  the  canon 
by  adding  thereto  the  books  of  Esdras  and  Nehemias. 
Attempts  have  been  made  to  account  for  the  contradic- 

*  Prideaux,     Connexion,      Part  I.,  B.  iv.  v.,  pp.  193,  265. 
«  Ibid.,  Part  I.  B.  viii.,  p.  380. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  37 

tions,  and  explain  away  the  glaring  anachronisms  embod- 
ied in  the  tradition  current  among  rabbinical  doctors, 
regarding  the  canon  of  Scripture.  But  these  attempts 
are  generally  regarded  as  unsatisfactory,  and  will  con- 
vince few  who  are  guided  to  their  own  conclusions  by 
common  sense  and  the  testimony  of  the  Scriptures,  in- 
stead of  the  fabulous  statements  advanced  by  the  ad- 
mirers of  the  Talmud. 

No  less  incredible  are  the  statements  of  rabbinical 
writers  regarding  the  origin,  authority,  and  functions  of 
the  Great  Synagogue,  to  which  the}'  refer  in  the  account 
which  they  give  of  Esdras.  This  Synagogue,  which  is 
said  to  have  constituted  the  supreme  tribunal  among 
the  Jews,  is  called  by  the  Rabbins  the  Sanhedrim,  or 
more  correctly  the  Sanhedrin,  a  modification  of  the 
Greek  Sujicdrion  (a  council),  which  seems  to  imply  that 
the  Great  Synago^nc  (another  word  of  Greek  extraction) 
was  not  established,  until  the  successors  of  Alexander 
the  Great  had  acquired  a  controlling  influence  in  Judea. 
Rabbinical  writers  have  tortured  their  imagination  by 
futile  efforts  to  enhance  the  credit  and  importance  of 
this  court,  which  was  composed  of  "  Priests,  Levites,  and 
Israelites  whose  rank  entitled  them  to  associate  with 
Priests."  '  They  numbered  70,  some  say  72,  members  be- 
sides the  High  Priest,  "  provided  he  was  a  man  endowed 
with  wisdom."  '  Ordinarily  the  office  of  president  was 
filled  by  him.  They  further  assert  that  the  Sanhedrim 
was  instituted  by  Moses,  when,  as  directed  by  God,  he 
selected  70  men  to  assist  him  in  bearing  tJie  burden  of 
the  people;'^  and  that  it  maintained  an  uninterrupted  ex- 
istence from  that  time  until  long  after  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Christian  era,  having  survived  all  the 
calamities  in  which  the  Jews  were  involved,  and  even 
their  final  dispersion  as  a  nation  under  the  Emperor 
Hadrian.     It  is  also  stated  that  the  authority  possessed 

1  Maimonides,  "  Sanhed,^^  c.  2.  '*  Ibid.  ^  Num.  xi.  16,  17. 


38  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Test  anient. 

by  the  Sanhedrim  was  no  less  respectable  than  its  origin 
and  duration,  being  co-extensive  with  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  relations  of  the  people.  Thus  it  received 
appeals  from  all  other  tribunals,  interpreted  the  law, 
ordained  sacred  i-ites,  imposed  tribute,  declared  war, 
exercised  the  power  of  life  and  death,  could  call  the 
High  Priest  to  account,  and  even  scourge  the  King 
when  in  fault.  In  fine,  it  exercised  supreme  legislative, 
executive,  and  judicial  authorit}-.  Now  all  this  is 
undiluted  fiction,  in  support  of  which  not  a  single  text 
can  be  produced  from  the  Scriptures,  nor  a  word  cited 
from  any  respectable  profane  writer.  It  is  true  that, 
as  Moses,  at  the  suggestion  of  Jethro,  appointed  men  as 
rulers  over  thousands,  and  hundreds,  and  fifties,  and  tens, 
to  decide  controversies  among  the  people, '  he  also,  when 
instructed  by  God  to  do  so,  collected  together  70  men 
of  the  ancients  of  Israel,  who,  it  seems,  were  to  assist 
him  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  religion.  ^  Furthermore, 
he  directed  that  after  the  conquest  of  Canaan  judges 
and  magistrates  should  be  appointed  in  all  the  cities.  ' 
Moses  then  adds  that  a  king  should  be  appointed,  and 
prescribes  the  rules  b}'  which  his  polic}^  and  conduct 
were  to  be  regulated.  But  he  nowhere  insinuates  that 
the  seventy  ancients  or  elders  constituted  a  permanent 
organization,  or  were  to  be  introduced  to  the  land  of 
promise  and  there  established  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
religious  or  political  constitution  which  God  gave  to  his 
people.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  the  judges  and  magis- 
trates appointed  in  the  several  cities  were  the  successors 
of  the  70  ancients,  and  thus  perpetuated  the  existence 
of  the  tribunal  instituted  by  Moses  in  the  desert ;  for 
those  judges  and  magistrates  lived  too  far  apart  from 
each  other  to  maintain  even  the  appearance  of  a  court 
or  council,  and,  in  fact,  are  not  known  to  have  ever  met 
together  for  judicial  or  other  purposes. 

'  Exod.  xviii.  2^.  -'  Xum.  \i.  i6.  ^  Deut.  xvi.  i8. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  39 

Moses,  assisted  by  his  senate   of  sevent}-,   exercised 
supreme  authority.     Josue,  without  a  senate,  issued  his 
orders  to  priests  and  people,  and  his  will  was  obeyed 
by  both. '    And  when  he  condescends  to  consult  others, 
it  is  not  a  senate  or  the  elders,  but  the  "  princes  "  of  the 
people  that  he  thus  honors. '     In  the  turbulent  times  of 
the  Judges  there  is  no  trace  of  any  such  tribunal  as  the 
Sanhedrim.      Whoever  during  that  calamitous  period 
*' did  not  that  which  seemed  right  to  himself '"  either 
paid  a  forced  obedience  to  the  common  enemy,  or  dis- 
played a  precarious  loyalty  to  the  chieftain  who  for  the 
time   being   stood   forth,  in    the   name   of   God,  as   the 
champion  of  his  people.     The  record  of  Heli's  adminis- 
tration, as  well  as  that  of  Samuel's,  exhibits  no  evidence 
of  the  results  that  would  surely  have  followed  from  the 
presence  and  influence  of  any  conciliar  body  like  the 
Sanhedrim.      Thus,    when    the   scandalous    conduct  of 
Heli's  son's  was  such  that  it  "  withdrew  men  from  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Lord,"  "  there  is  no  tribunal  to  call  them 
to  account.     It  is  Heli  himself  who  performs  that  un- 
pleasant duty."     And   Samuel,  as  is  well  known,  went 
about  the  country  every  year  to  judge  Israel, '  made  war, ' 
appointed,  anointed,    rebuked,    and   deposed  the  king  ' 
without  assistance,   counsel,  or  interference  from    anv 
one  but  the  Lord.     During  the  entire  period  extending 
from  the  death  of  Samuel  to  the  captivity  of  Babylon, 
the  kings,  by  whom  he  was  succeeded,  ruled  as  auto- 
crats, and   regulated  their  policy  on  principles  far  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  they  would  have  followed  had 
a  Sanhedrim,  like  the  one  described  b}-  Jewish  writers, 
been  at  hand  to  counsel  or  control  them.     Most  of  them 
claimed  to  be  exempt  from  all  restraint,  except  such  as 
their  own  arbitrary  will  imposed  ;  and  the  best  among 

'  Jos.  i.  10,  16-18.  ^  Ibid.   ix.  15  :  xiv.  I.  ^  Judges  xyii.  6. 

*  I.  Kings,  ii.  17.  ^  Ibid.  23-25.  «  I.  Kings  vii.  16. 

'  Ibid,  10.  *  Ibid.  x.  xiii.,  xv.  xvi. 


40  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

them  held  themselves  responsible  to  no  one  but  God. 
They  may  have  had  around  them,  like  Solomon,  '  coun- 
sellors whose  experience  would  be  of  service  in  great 
emergencies.  But,  like  Solomon's  silly  son  and  succes- 
sor, they  could  reject  their  advice,  and  shape  their 
policy  according  to  the  suggestions  of  thoughtless 
youth,  '  or  follow  the  course  dictated  by  their  own  cap- 
ricious judgment.  And  not  one  among  them,  from  the 
first  to  the  last,  was  ever  placed  on  trial,  or,  judged  by 
their  history,  would  have  allowed  himself  to  be  ar- 
raigned before  any  court,  civil  or  religious,  composed 
of  his  own  subjects.  With  little  or  no  opposition  or 
interference  from  any  quarter,  they  degraded  high 
priests,  appointed  judges  or  sat  in  judgment  themselves, 
commissioned  generals,  declared  war,  made  peace,  con- 
tracted alliances,  infficted  capital  punishment,  with  a 
will  which,  though  in  some  of  them  upright,  was  gener- 
ally as  arbitrary  as  that  of  any  modern  oriental  despot. 
In  a  country  governed  by  such  rulers  there  was  no 
room  for  a  tribunal  like  the  Sanhedrim  of  the  Tal- 
mudists. 

For  a  long  period  after  the  return  from  Babylon 
there  is  no  mention  whatever  of  the  Sanhedrim  or  any 
tribunal  similar  to  it.  All  administrative  power  was  at 
first  possessed  by  Zorobabel,  then  by  Esdras,  and  after- 
wards by  Nehemias.  And  whatever  measures  were 
adopted  for  the  restoration  of  the  commonwealth,  relig- 
ious worship  or  moral  dicipline  are  represented  as 
originating  with  and  enforced  by  one  or  all  of  these 
three.  There  is,  indeed,  reason  for  believing  that  Ag- 
gasus  and  Zacharias,  as  prophets,  rendered  important 
assistance  in  rebuilding  Jerusalem;'  but  it  is  nowhere 
said,  or  even  insinuated,  that  they,  of  themselves  or 
with  others,  constituted  a  court  or  council,  much  less  a 
tribunal  resembling  in  any  wa}'  the   Sanhedrim  of  the 

'   III. Kings  xii.  6.  '^  Ibid.  14.  3  Esdras  v.  i;  vi.  14. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  4 1 

Rabbins.  In  fact,  it  is  not  until  the  Christian  period  is 
reached  that  any  reference  to  a  Sanhedrim  is  met  with 
in  sacred  history,  the  first  mention  of  the  institution  be- 
ing found  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament.  '  In 
Matt.  V.  22  Our  Lord  Himself  is  represented  as  referring 
to  the  Sanhedrim  as  an  actual  and  well  known  tribunal. 
But  its  prerogatives  were  insignificant  compared  with 
those  claimed  for  it  by  the  Rabbins  ;  for,  far  from  exercis- 
ing independent  and  unlimited  power  in  religious  as  well 
as  civil  matters,  it  could  only  call  to  account  persons  ac- 
cused of  violating  the  law  of  Moses,  or  the  sanctity  of 
the  temple,  as  may  be  inferred  from  Matt.  xxvi.  59,  6r, 
65  ;  Acts  vi.  12,  13  ;  on  such  offenders  it  could  even 
pronounce  sentence  of  death.  But  whatever  may  have 
been  the  extent  of  the  powers  previously  possessed  by 
the  Sanhedrim,  under  the  Roman  dominion  all  further 
proceedings  in  criminal  cases  could  be  suspended  or  in- 
terrupted by  the  representative  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment.' Without  his  authority  capital  punishment  could 
not  be  inflicted  ;  '  and  any  one  judged  worthy  of  death 
by  the  Sanhedrim  could  be  even  set  at  liberty  by  him.  * 
Josephus,  who  was  familiar  with  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions of  his  countrymen,  and  has  described  them  with 
great  minuteness,  refers  to  the  Sanhedrim  as  a  supreme 
court,  which  Moses  directed  to  be  established  in  "  the 
holy  city  "  for  the  purpose  of  deciding  cases  which  the 
judges  in  the  other  cities  might  be  unable  to  dispose  of. ' 
But  he  does  not  say  that  after  the  occupation  of  Canaan 
and  the  establishment  of  "  the  holy  city  "  the  diixction 
of  Moses  in  this  matter  was  carried  out.  He  also  states,  * 
that  when  endeavoring  to  prevent  the  people  from  en- 
gaging in  rebellion  against  the  Romans,  he  was  acting 
under  orders  from  the  Sanhedrim  in  Jerusalem.     And 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  59  ;  Mark  xiv.  55  ;  Luke  xxii.  66;    Acts  iv.  15;  v.  21   27. 

2  Acts  xxiii.  23,  24.  *  John  xviii.,  3I.         ''  Ibid.  xix.  7,  10. 
•''   Josephus  Antiq.,  B.  iv.,  c.  viii,  ^  14.  ''  Ibid  Life  %   12. 


42  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

treating  of  thereignof  Hyrcanus  II.,  which  commenced  B. 
C.  60,  he  represents  the  chief  men  of  the  Jews  as  declaring, 
that  according  to  their  law  the  life  of  no  man  could  be 
taken  who  had  not  first  been  condemned  to  death  by 
the  Sanhedrim.'  If,  therefore,  Josephiis  can  be  relied 
on — a  somewhat  uncertain  point,  the  Sanhedrim  in  the 
time  of  Hyrcanus  was  in  existence,  and  was  recognized 
among  the  Jews  as  the  only  tribunal  having  jurisdiction 
in  capital  cases.  But  whether  the  origin  of  that  tri- 
bunal can  be  assigned  to  an  earlier  date  is  doubted  by 
many  eminent  writers.  'Catholics  generally  are  agreed 
that  its  existence  before  or  in  the  time  of  Esdras  cannot 
be  proved.  Petavius  ^  (d.  1652),  refers  its  origin  to  the 
period  when  Gabinius  was  governor  of  Judea,  57  B.  C. 
Calmet  '  (d.  1757)  asserts  that  it  was  introduced  in  the 
Machabean  period  ;  so  does  Dixon.  '  Ubaldi  *  says  that 
the  existence  of  a  Sanhedrim,  propei-ly  so  called,  in  the 
time  of  Esdras  and  Nehemias  is  afifirmed  by  the  Rabbins 
without  sufficient  reason.  Protestant  writers  also  very 
generally  contend,  that  the  Sanhedrim  was  founded  at 
some  date  subsequent  to  the  age  of  Esdras.  Grotius  ** 
(d.  1645)  refers  its  origin  to  the  reign  of  the  Herods. 
Basnage '  (d.  1723)  at  first  favored  the  opinion  of  Petavius, 
but,  changing  his  mind,  designated  as  the  time  when  the 
Sanhedrim  was  founded  the  reign  of  Judas  or  Jonathas 
Machabeus,  rather  that  of  the  latter.  Stackhouse.  " 
Vicar  of  Beenham,  England,  is  of  opinion  that  "the 
Machabees  were  the  first  institutors  of  the  Sanhedrim." 
Prideaux  ^  (d.  1724)  states  that  the  Sanhedrim  existed 
before  the  time  of  Gabinius.  Milman  '"  remarks  that 
"  Evvald  a   German    Protestant    writer   of   the  present 

•  Ant.,  B.  xiv.,  c.  ix.,  %  3.  -  De  Doctr.  temporum,  L.  ii.,  c.  2b. 

^  De  Politia  et  Sanhedrio  Hebraorum. 

■•  Introd.  to  the  S.  S(i//>.-iiiK,2.         '■'  Introd.  in  S.  Scrip.,  vol.  ii.  148-1878. 

fi  Ad  I.  Paral.  xxi.  4.  ^  Hnt.  des  Jitifi,  L.  i,  c.  4. 

s  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  767.— 1846.  "  Comiex.  ii.  292. 

'"  Hist  of  the  JrMs,  ii.  113.  — 1874. 


Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  43 

century,  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  it  was  founded  by 
Ezra,  but  for  once  is  not  positive.  Jost,  a  German  Jew 
of  this  century,  would  date  it  from  the  time  of  Simon 
Machabeus.  I  think  this  the  most  probable  date."  W. 
L.  Alexander,  M.  A.,  in  Kitto's  Cyclopedia  (1852),  states 
that  the  Sanhedrim  existed  before  the  time  of  H3'rca- 
nus  II.  But  Professor  Smith  of  Aberdeen  '  appears  cer- 
tain "  that  the  whole  idea  that  there  ever  was  a  body 
called  the  Great  Synagogue  holding  rule  in  the  Jewish 
nation  is  a  pure  fiction  ;  "  and  that  the  opinion  that  it 
"  fixed  the  canon  is  a  mere  opinion  of  Elias  Levita,  a 
Jewish  scholar  contemporar}-  with  Luther." 

All,  however,  concur  in  maintaining  that  the  statements 
of  rabbinical  writers  regarding  the  origin,  duration,  and 
authority  of  the  Sanhedrim,  and  its  composition  in  the 
time  of  Esdras,  contain  gross  contradictions  and  pal- 
pable anachronisms,  and  are  therefore  to  be  rejected 
as  fabulous.  There  is  no  question  here  as  to  those  local 
establishments  known  as  synagogues,  which  for  some 
time  before  and  after  the  commencement  of  the  Chris- 
tian era  were  to  be  found  e)'ery where  throughout  Ju- 
dea,  and  outside  its  limits,  wherever  any  large  number 
of  Jews  was  to  be  met  with.  The  officials  of  these  S3'na- 
gogiies,  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  exercised  some  degree  of 
authority  over  their  members.  They  could  punish  of- 
fenders by  expulsion  or  even  scourging.  ^  And  when 
such  power  was  exercised  by  them,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  Sanhedrim  could,  short  of  capital  punishment, 
infiict  severer  penalties  under  the  Roman  governors. 
Whether  there  was  an  extradition  treaty  between  Are- 
tas  and  the  ecclesiastical  authority  at  Jerusalem  is  not 
known,  but  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  Saul,  '  armed  with 
credentials  by  the  High  Priest  to  the  sjmagogues  at 
Damascus,  started  for  that  cit)'  in  order  to  arrest  and 

1   The  O.T.  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  156.  157. 

*  John  ix.  22;  Mai.  x.  22;    Acts  xxii.  19.  »  Acts  ix.  2. 


44  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

drag  to  Jerusalem  such  Jews  as  had  embraced  the 
Christian  religion.  The  origin  of  the  local  synagogues 
(^places  or  meetings  appointed  for  religious  worship) 
may  be  traced  to  the  period  of  the  exile,  as  some  suppose, 
or,  as  others  believe,  even  much  farther  back — the  time 
of  the  Judges.  But  even  so,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  there  was  among  the  political  or  theocratic  insti- 
tutions of  the  Jews  a  supreme  court,  whether  it  be 
called  the  Great  Synagogue  or  Sanhedrim,  maintaining 
an  uninterrupted  existence  from  the  time  of  Moses  until 
long  after  the  final  dispersion  of  the  Jews,  and  clothed 
with  unrestricted  power,  legislative,  judicial,  and  execu- 
tive, in  all  that  concerned  ecclesiastical  and  civil  affairs. 
So  far  from  that,  the  disjointed  and  incoherent  details 
supplied  by  the  Rabbins,  in  connection  with  the  San- 
hedrim in  the  time  of  Esdras  particularl)%  have  induced 
almost  every  critic  to  doubt  whether  the  body  styled 
in  the  New  Testament  Sanhedrim  or  council  even  then 
existed  ;  and  not  a  few  to  assert  that  it  was  not  until  long 
after  Esdras  had  passed  away,  that  even  the  compara- 
tively unimportant  tribunal  so  called  in  the  Gospels  and 
other  Apostolic  writings  was  created. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  all  the  incredible  details  which 
the  Rabbins  and  the  author  of  IV.  Esdras  have  grouped 
arovmd  the  tradition  which  attributes  the  settlement  of 
the  Hebrew  canon  to  Esdras  the  Scribe,  it  was  not  until 
after  a  lapse  of  several  centuries  that  any  Christian  writ- 
er ventured  to  express  a  doubt  regarding  the  accuracy 
of  that  tradition.  Thus  it  has  been  seen,  that  up  to  the- 
seventh  century  the  Fathers  who  had  occasion  to  refer 
to  the  subject  generally  regarded  Esdras  as  the  author 
of  that  canon.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  any  one,  for  a 
long  time  after,  believed  that  this  opinion  was  even  de- 
batable. A  careful  study  of  the  subject,  however,  at 
last  forced  on  critics  a  suspicion  that,  while  the  Script- 
ures themselves  fail  to  supply  any  evidence  in  favor  of 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  45 

the  claim  advanced  in  behalf  of  Esdras,  they  seem  to 
present  conclusive  proof  that  the  Hebrew  canon,  such 
as  it  is  at  present,  could  not  have  been  the  work  of  Es- 
dras, since  some  of  the  books  which  it  includes  could 
not  have  been  written  before  nor  during  his  lifetime, 
while  others  refer  to  events  that  did  not  occur  until 
long  after  he  had  closed  his  career.  The  Book  of  Nehe- 
mias,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted,  was  written  after  the 
death  of  Esdras.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Book  of 
Malachias,  the  last  of  the  prophets.  Both  writers,  though 
living  in  the  time  of  Esdras,  belonged  to  a  later  genera- 
tion. And  even  if  it  be  admitted  that  Esdras  commenced, 
and  Nehemias,  with  Malachias,  continued  the  work  nec- 
essary to  collect,  correct,  and  determine  the  sacred 
books,  it  is  certain  that  the  Hebrew  canon  in  its  present 
shape  was  not  completed  by  either  or  both  of  them. 
For,  in  the  Book  of  Nehemias '  mention  is  made  of  Jeddoa, 
who  was  high  priest  when  Alexander  the  Great  entered 
Jerusalem,  ^  and  who  survived  the  death  of  that  prince 
two  years,  thus  closing  his  career  215  years  after  the 
captivit}',  that  is,  in  322  B.  C.  And  even  the  days  of 
Jeddoa  are  mentioned  as  already  passed  and  "  recorded,"  ^ 
as  if  the  book  had  been  written  when  Jeddoa  had  been 
already  sometime  dead.  Besides,  in  I.  Paral.  iii.  19 — 24, 
the  descendants  of  Zorobabel,  the  leader  of  the  first  band 
of  captives  who  returned  from  Bab3lon,  if  he  and  the 
last  on  the  list  be  each  counted  as  a  generation,  are  enu- 
'  merated  for  12  generations,  which  represent  at  the  very 
least  a  period  of  300  years,  bringing  down  the  record  of 
that  famil}'  to  a  date  still  later,  that  is  to  236.  B.  C, 
when  Onias  11.  was  high  priest,  being  the  third  after 
Simon  the  Just.  Thus  the  posterity  of  Zorobabel  is  here 
traced  to  a  time  about  half  a  century  after  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  had  been  translated  into  Greek,  and  within 
70  years    of   the  date  at  which  the  Machabean  period 

'  Neh.  xii.  Ii.  2  jos.  Aniiq.^  B.  xi,,  c.  viii.,  §  5.  ^  Neh.  xii.  22. 


46  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

commences.  Whether  the  passages  just  referred  to  in 
I.  Paral.  and  Nehemias  be  interpolations  by  an  inspired 
pen,  or  the  genuine  statements  of  the  authors  by  whom 
the  books  were  written,  they  pi-ove  that  at  least  they 
could  not  have  had  Esdras  or  any  of  his  contemporaries 
as  I  heir  author  or  editor,  unless  it  be  supposed  that  he 
or  some  of  them  lived  to  an  age  attained  by  no  mortal 
since  the  patriarchal  period.  As  a  consequence  of  all 
this,  the  position  taken  by  those  who  maintain  that  "  in 
the  time  of  Artaxerxes,  which  was  the  age  of  Esdras  and 
Nehemias,  the  collection  of  the  sacred  books  was  com- 
pleted by  an  authority  which  thenceforward  ceased  to  ex- 
ist," '  or  by  those  who  consider  "  Esdras  ...  to  be  the  au- 
thor of  the  canon  "  '  must  be  abandoned.  Prideaux,  ^  in 
order  to  meet  the  difficulty,  affirms  that  I.  and  II.  Paral., 
Esdras,  Nehemias,  Esther,  and  Malachias  were  added 
to  the  canon  in  the  time  of  Simon  the  Just,  high  priest 
after  Onias,  who  succeeded  Jeddoa ;  and  his  reason  for 
so  affirming  is,  that  the  books  of  Nehemias  and  probably 
Malachias  were  written  after  the  time  of  Esdras,  while 
the  others  were  written  by  Esdras  himself.  '  If,  as  is 
generally  admitted,  Nehemias  and  Malachias  were  not 
written  before  or  at  least  during  the  lifetime  of  Esdras, 
he  certainly  could  not  have  placed  them  on  the  canon. 
It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  he  wrote  I.  and  II.  Paral. 
and  Esther,  though  his  authorship  of  Esdras  cannot  well 
be  doubted.  But  why,  if  he  wrote  all  these  books,  he 
could  not  have  added  them  to  the  canon,  as  Prideaux 
thinks,  is  not  very  clear.  Unconvinced  by  the  reasoning 
of  Prideaux,  Dr.  Wright  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
candidly  acknowledges,  that  "  we  have  no  certain  evi- 
dence as  to  the  authority  on  which,  or  the  time  when, 
the  Jewish  canon  was  collected,  or  of  the  cause  of  its 
closing."  ^     Reuss,  a  recent  writer,  and  professor  in  the 

'  Kitto's  Cycl.,    art.  Canon.         '  Ibid.,  art.  Ezra.         ^  Connex.,  B.  v. 
*  Ibid.,  r..  v'ii.  '■   Kitto's  Tjr/.,    Dciitero  canonical. 


Tiic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  47 

university  of  Strasburg,  asks  this  question  :  "  Is  it  quite 
true,  that  the  Hebrew  canon,  as  we  possess  it,  was  closed 
before  the  time  of  the  apostles?"  and  answers  it  by  say- 
ing, "  No  one  can  prove  it,"  '  and  goes  on  to  show  "  that 
inthetimeof  Josephus  the  books  called  the  Hagiographa' 
were  not  gathered  into  a  clearly  defined  collection,  and 
that  certain  Hebrew  documents,  which  now  form  part  of 
them,  were  unknown  to  that  author."  Professor  Smith 
of  Aberdeen,  who  wrote  in  1881,  states,''  that  in  the  six- 
teenth century  it  was  currently  believed  in  the  Protestant 
churches  that  "  the  canon  was  completed  by  the  men  of 
the  Great  Synagogue,"  a  body  which,  he  maintains,  "  met 
once  for  all,"  as  stated  in  Neh.  viii.  10,  and  about  which 
"  everything  that  is  told  .  .  .  except  what  we  read  in 
Nehemias,  is"  as  we  have  already  seen,  '  "  pure  fable  of 
the  later  Jews."  In  view  of  such  sentiments,  expressed 
by  men  who  still  cherish  some  respect  for  the  sacred 
volume,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  infidels  and  ration- 
alists would  hesitate  to  go  at  least  the  same  length  in  the 
same  direction.  Hence  Spinoza  '  (d.  1677)  contends,  that 
the  canon  of  the  Jews  commenced  by  the  ancient  proph- 
ets was  not  completed  and  closed  until  the  time  of  the 
Machabees,  or  the  second  century  before  Christ,  while 
Bertholdt'  and  De  Wette,'  recent  German  writers,  agree 
that  the  Hebrew  canon  was  the  result  of  no  fixed  plan,  nor 
the  work  of  any  particular  author,  but  that  under  the  in- 
fluence of  fortuitous  circumstances  it  gradually  and  im- 
perceptibly assumed  its  present  dimensions,  long  after  the 
time  of  Esdras.  The  object  of  the  schools  represented 
by  the  last  named  writers  is  to  get  rid  of  the  supernatural 
order  altogether.     Hence  their  criticism  is  aimed  at  the 

'  Hist,  of  the  canon  of  the  H.  Script.,  pp.  9,  10. — 1884 

2  "  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job,   Ruth,  LamenUtions,  Ecclesiastes,  Esther,  Dan- 
iel, Esdras,  Nehemias,  and  Chronicles." 

3  Hist.of  the  O.  T,  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  156,  157. 

■•  Supra,  p.  43.  "   Tract.  Theolog.  Polit.,  c.  x. 

'^  Einleit.,    Tome  i.,  p.  70,  etc,  '  Einkit.,  ^  13,  14. 


48  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

overthrow  of  all  testimony  in  favor  of  revelation,  mira- 
cles, and  prophecy. 

A  Lapide  (d.  1637)  takes  no  notice  of  the  difficulty 
connected  with  I.  Paral.  iii.  19-24,  but  discusses  with 
his  usual  learning  that  presented  in  Nehemias  xii.,  say- 
ing that  verse  11,  as  well  as  22,  was  not  written  by 
Nehemias,  but  by  the  Jewish  Synagogue,  then  infallible 
or  by  some  inspired  author  after  the  death  of  Nehemias  ; 
that  Nehemias  could  have  seen  Jeddoa  when  the  latter 
was  a  child,  but  not  after  he  became  high  priest.  But 
even  so  a  Lapide  is  compelled  to  suppose  that  "  Esdras 
lived  one  hundred  and  forty-one  years,  and  that  Nehe- 
mias, like  all  others  at  the  time,  died  after  attaining  a 
great  age."  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  there 
is  nothing  known  with  certainty  regarding  the  age  of 
Esdras  and  Nehemias  at  their  death.  According  to 
some  Jewish  chronicles  Esdras  died  the  same  year  that 
Alexander  the  Great  entered  Jerusalem.  According  to 
other  traditions,  he  died  at  the  age  of  a  hundred  and 
twenty.  '  Calmet,  in  his  commentary  on  Nehemias  xii., 
cites  several  Catholic  writers,  according  to  whom  the 
names  of  Jonathan  and  Joadda  in  verse  1 1  and  verses 
22,  23,  and  24  were  added  by  some  writer  who  lived 
after  Nehemias,  as  the  latter  must  have  been  dead 
before  the  time  of  Jonathan  and  Jeddoa.  But  Calmet 
believes  that,  since  verse  22  is  considered  to  have  been 
written  by  Nehemias,  we  must  suppose  that  Nehemias, 
at  his  death,  had  reached  the  age  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  years,  a  matter  not  at  all  improbable  in 
view  of  the  long  life  of  Esdras  and  Sanballat,  who  is 
mentioned  in  Nehemias  xiii.  28.  This  looks  like  prov- 
ing one  supposition  by  making  another,  a  defect  which 
seems  inherent  also  in  the  explanation  of  a  Lapide ; 
for  the  age  of  Esdras,  Nehemias,  and  Sanballat  is 
problematical.     The  genealogy  contained  in  L  Paral.  iii. 

'   Kitto,  Cyclopedia^  Ezra. 


T]ic  Canon  of  the  Old  Test  anient.  49 

19-24  has  the  names  of  four  great-grandfathers,  and  all 
these,  as  great-grandfathers,  must  have  been  seen  by  or 
been  living  in  the  time  of  Esdras  or  Nehemias,  if  these 
names  were  written  by  either.      Calmet  on  this  point 
is,    therefore,    compelled  to   say    that  the  author   of  I. 
Paral.,  "  as  we  have  it,  is  evidently  a  different  man  from 
Esdras,  since   from  Zorobabel  to  the  tenth   generation 
after   him    at  least   three    hundred  years  passed,  even 
though  an  average  of  only  thirty  years  be  assigned  to 
each  generation."      It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  even  if  it 
be  supposed,  as  some  suggest,  that  the  Jeddoa  of  the 
Book  of  Nehemias  is  not  identical  with,  but  one  who 
lived  earlier  than  the  Jaddus,  or  Jado  of  Josephus ;  and 
that   Esdras,  or   Nehemias,   or   even  both,  lived  to  an 
unusually  old  age,  it  will  be  difficult  to  conceive  how 
the  Jewish  tradition  regarding   the  fixing  and   closing 
of  the  canon  for  all  time    to   come  can    be   reconciled 
with  what  is  said  in  I.  Paral.  iii.  and  Nehemias  xii.  ;  and 
the  only  possible  way  out  of  the  difficulty  will  be  to  say, 
as   several    writers    have   proposed,  that    the  verses  in 
question  were  added  by  some  inspired   hand   after  the 
time  of  Esdras  and  Nehemias,  just  as  the  last  chapter 
in  the   Books  of  Moses  was  not   written   by   him,   but 
after  his  death,  by  Josue  or  one  of  the  prophets.      But 
from  adopting  this  hypothesis  we  seem  again  debarred 
by  the  aforesaid  tradition.     For,  whereas  it  is  admitted 
by  all,  that,  when   Moses  died,  there  still  remained  an 
authority  competent  to  complete  his  writings,  and  add 
to  the  canon  as  he  left  it,  the  tradition  in  question  for- 
bids the   supposition  that   the    canon    was   not   closed 
until  three  hundred  years  after  the  generation  to  which 
Zorobabel  belonged,  or  until  the  time  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  the  earliest  period,    it  seems,  at  which  the  last 
word   in    the    Hebrew     Scriptures   could     have     been 
written. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Christian  Critics  on  the  Formation  of  the  Jew- 
ish Canon. 

The  opinion  which,  apart  from  details  connected 
with  the  subject,  has  prevailed  among  and  is  still  gen- 
erally advocated  by  Catholic  writers,  regarding  the 
formation  of  the  Hebrew  canon,  is,  that  it  was  princi- 
pally the  work  of  Esdras,  and  that,  having  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  Sanhedrim  of  the  time,  it  was  approved 
by  that  body,  but  not  closed  for  all  time  to  come.  A 
similar  opinion  was  held  at  first  by  Protestants,  who, 
however,  maintained  that,  the  prophetic  spirit  having 
ceased  with  Esdras,  no  further  additions  could  be  made 
to  his  canon.  Hence,  in  all  their  editions  of  the  Bible, 
although  they  included  the  deutero  books,  the}^  placed 
them  by  themselves  at  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament, 
or  between  the  Old  and  New,  and  under  some  special 
title,  denoting  either  that  they  were  of  inferior  authori- 
ty, or  were  not  divinely  inspired  like  the  rest  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  till  at  last  these  books  disappeared 
altogether  from  many  Bibles  published  under  Protes- 
tant auspices.  But  further  study  of  the  subject 
convinced  the  descendants  of  those  who  at  first  de- 
graded, then  repudiated  the  deutero  books,  that  the 
final  closing  of  the  canon  in  the  time  of  Esdras  could 
not  be  insisted  on;  and  most  of  them  adopted  the  opinion, 
that  the  labors  of  Esdras  on  the  canon  were  continued 
after  his  death  by  several  other  eminent  men;  Simon 
the  Just  and  certain  members  of  the  Great  Synagogue, 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testaviejit.  5  i 

having  added  to  the  canon  some  books  which,  not 
having  been  written  before  or  during  the  Hfetime  of 
Esdras,  he  could  not  have  placed  on  the  roll  of  Sacred 
Scriptures.  At  present  not  a  few  Protestant  critics  ' 
maintain,  that  the  Hebrew  canon  was  not  completed  even 
in  the  time  of  Simon  the  Just ;  and  that  there  is  no 
evidence  to  show,  that  the  canon  had  attained  its  present 
dimensions,  until  after  the  commencement  of  the  Chris- 
tian era. 

There  is  hardly  a  question  connected  with  the  Christian 
religion,  which  has  been  the  occasion  of  so  much  specu- 
lation as  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  writers 
of  all  shades  of  behef  as  well  as  of  none,  Catholics,  Prot- 
estants, rationalists,  and  infidels,  have  taken  part  in  its 
discussion.  Why,  it  is  asked,  are  there  two  canons — a 
long  and  a  short  one — the  former  advocated  by  Catho- 
lics, the  latter  by  Protestants  and  Jews?  Why  attribute 
to  Esdras  the  Jewish  canon,  since  it  embi'aces  books 
which  Esdras  could  never  have  seen,  or  at  least  state- 
ments which  he  could  never  have  written  ?  Wh}',  even 
if  it  be  assumed  that  Esdras  was  the  author  of  that 
canon,  do  we  find  the  disciples  of  Hillel  and  Shammai, 
as  late  as  the  end  of  the  first  Christian  century,  disput- 
ing about  the  canonicity  of  certain  books  now  found 
thereon  ?  Why  is  it  that  no  inspired  writer,  Jewish  or 
Christian,  has  even  hinted  that  Esdras  had  anything 
whatever  to  do  with  collecting  and  compiling  a  cata- 
logue of  sacred  books  ?  Why  all  this,  if  the  Jewish 
canon,  as  we  have  it,  was  the  work  of  Esdras?  Again, 
why  is  it  that  the  Hellenistic  or  Greek-speaking  Jews, 
for  several  centuries  before  and  after  the  coming  of 
Christ,  made  use  of  a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Script- 
ures which  contained  much  more  than  is  now  found  in 
the  Hebrew  Bible?     Wh}-  is  it  that  Our  Lord  and  His 

'  Hunter's  Translation  of  Reuss's  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  H.  Script.,  309- 
314,  note  339. 


52  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

apostles  often  quote  texts,  not  as  read  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  but  as  read  in  that  translation?  Why  is  it  that 
the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  borrow  ideas  and  lan- 
guage from,  if  they  do  not  actually  cite  books  contained 
in  that  translation,  but  omitted  in  Hebrew  Bibles  ?  Why 
do  Josephus  and  Philo,  both  learned  Jews,  make  use  of 
the  Scriptures  contained  in  that  translation  ?  Why  does 
the  former  introduce  as  "  Scripture  "  a  text  nowhere 
found  in  a  proto,  but  contained  in  a  deutero  book  ?  ' 
Why,  while  some  of  the  Fathers  place  the  deutero  books 
outside  the  canon,  yet  quoting  them  as  Scripture,  do 
others  include  them  in  the  canon  and  cite  them  as  di- 
vine ?     Why  all  this  and  much  more  of  the  same  sort  ? 

These  questions  were  the  subject  of  occasional  com- 
ment from  almost  the  very  dawn  of  Christian  history  ; 
but  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  received  special  atten- 
tion, or  to  have  provoked  general  discussion,  before  the 
sixteenth  century..  Since  then,  various  theories  have 
been  proposed  in  order  to  account  for  the  difificulties 
which  these  questions  present. 

Genebrard  "  (d.  1597),  a  French  Benedictine,  is  of  opin- 
ion that  three  canons  were  drawn  up  among  the  Jews. 
The  first,  made  in  the  time  of  Esdras  and  established  by 
the  Great  S3aiagogue  in  what  he  calls  the  fifth  synod. 
The  second,  made  under  the  auspices  of  Eleazar,  the 
High  Priest,  in  a  council  named  by  Genebrard  the  sixth 
synod,  and  convened  for  the  purpose  of  deliberating  on 
the  Greek  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  de- 
manded by  Ptolemy,  King  of  Egypt,  and  now  known 
as  the  Septuagint.  "  It  was  on  this  occasion,"  says 
Genebrard,  "  that  the  books  of  Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom,. 
Ecclesiasticus,  and  Baruch  (unless,  as  seems  probable,  it 
was  already  on  the  Esdrine  canon)  were  edited.  The 
third  canon  was  formed  in  the  time  of  John  Hyrcanus, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  seventh  S3'nod,  which  was  con- 

'   II.  Contra  Apion.,  §  25.  -    Chron.,  L.  2. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  53 

voked  in  order  to  confirm  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees,  of 
which  Hillel  and  Shammai  were  the  chiefs,  and  to  con- 
demn Sadoc  and  Barjetos,  promoters  of  the  sect  called 
Sadducees.  At  that  synod  the  two  books  of  Machabees 
were  placed  on  the  canon,  and  the  two  preceding  canons 
confirmed,  in  spite  of  the  Sadducees,  who,  like  the  Sam- 
aritans, refused  to  recognize  as  divine  any  but  the  five 
Books  of  Moses.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe  that 
there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  such 
synods  were  ever  held,  and  that  the  theory  of  which  they 
form  the  ground-work  has  met  with  few  advocates. 

Serarius'  (d.  1609)  a  learned  Jesuit  and  a  native  of 
Lorraine,  after  a  careful  study  of  the  subject,  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  two  canons  had  been  drawn  up, 
one  by  Esdras  and  preserved  unchanged  by  the  Pales- 
tinian Jews,  and  another,  which,  besides  the  books  in  the 
Esdrine  canon,  included  the  deutero  books,  and  was 
used  by  the  Hellenists  or  foreign  Jews,  especially 
those  of  Alexandria,  and  subsequently  by  Our  Lord  and 
His  apostles,  who  gave  it  their  sanction  and  de- 
livered it  to  the  Church.  This  theory  was  afterwards 
advocated  by  Tournemine  '  (d.  1739),  also  a  Jesuit, 
and  other  writers,  not  only  Catholics  but  rationalists, 
Avho  are  mentioned  by  Comely,  a  Jesuit,  and  the  author 
of  a  recent  "  Introduction  to  the  Sacred  Scripture,  "  in 
which  the  opinion  of  Serarius  is  ably  defended.  It  seems 
also  to  have  been  embraced  by  Vincenzi '  and  Fran- 
zelin. ' 

Richard  Simon,  a  French  Oratorian  (d.  1712),  main- 
tained '  that  Esdras  collected  together  the  ancient  Scrip- 
tures, "  here  and  there  abridging  and  changing,"  as  he 
thought  necessary  ;  and  that  "  those  books  are  no  more 

•  Proleg.  c.  viii.   %   xvi. 

2  Appe7td.  ad  Prcrloq.  Banfrerii.,  Art.  i.  Parisiis.       18S5,  vol.,  p.  51. 

"^  Sessio  Qitarla  Cntic.   Trid.,  Part,  xi.,  34. 

-»  Dc  Divina  Tnid.  et  Sa-ipt.,  pp.  444,  449,  note.        Hist,  oitiq.,    L.   i.,  c.  i. 


54  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

than  abridgments  of  memoirs  much  more  extensive  ; " 
in  short,  that  the  books  on  the  Hebrew  canon  are  mere- 
ly a  compendium  by  Esdras  of  the  sacred  records  extant 
in  his  time.  The  arguments  advanced  in  support  of 
this  theory  are  generally  considered  altogether  incom- 
petent. First,  because  the  supposition,  (it  is  nothing 
more),  that  that  part  of  the  Old  Testament  written  be- 
f(^re  the  captivity  of  Babylon  is  a  mere,  compendium, 
which  Esdras  made  of  the  books  then  extant,  is  opposed 
to  the  well  founded  and  common  sentiment,  which  has 
prevailed  from  time  immemorial  among  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians, and  is  not  mentioned  by  a  single  writer  who  pre- 
ceded Simon,  by  whom  it  was  conceived  and  with 
whom  it  seems  to  have'  died.  Second,  because  the  Sa- 
maritan Pentateuch,  generall}-  supposed  to  belong  to  a 
date  anterior  to  the  age  of  Esdras,  agrees  substantially 
with  the  Hebrew  Pentateuch.  Now,  if  the  latter  be  a 
compendium,  so  must  the  former.  That  is,  the  compen- 
dium preceded  the  person  by  whom  it  was  made,  or  the 
Samaritans  allowed  an  enemy  (for  such  they  considered 
Esdras)  to  prepare  for  them  an  abstract  of  the  Mosaic 
writings.  If  so,  why  did  the}'-  not  also  adopt  his  abstract 
of  the  other  sacred  writings  ?  Third,  because  the  sup- 
position cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  practice  of  Our 
Lord  and  His  apostles,  who  are  everywhere  repre- 
sented in  the  New  Testament,  when  quoting  the  Old,  as 
using  the  very  words  of  the  writer  whom  they  cite. 
Thus,  when  Moses,  or  David,  or  Solomon  or  any  of  the 
prophets  is  appealed  to  W  them,  the  reader  is  given  to 
understand  that  it  is  the  language  of  the  author  named 
that  is  cited,  and  not  that  put  into  his  mouth  bv  an  ab- 
breviator.  Fourth,  because,  were  the  supposition  cor 
rect,  there  would  be  no  diversity  of  style  and  treatment 
between  one  book  and  another,  as  is  the  case  at  present. 
Nor  would  the  more  ancient  books,  as  they  do  now,  con- 
tain archaic,  pure,  and  unadulterated  Hebrew,  while  the 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  55 

latter  books  are  free  from  all  such  expressions,  and  are 
written  in  a  language  which  already  exhibits  traces  of 
the  influence  exercised  on  it  by  the  idioms  of  the  various 
nations,  with  which  the  Jews  were  brought  in  contact 
after  their  settlement  in  Canaan.  Fifth,  because  the 
writings,  which  treat  of  events  that  occurred  before  the 
time  of  Esdras,  exhibit  redundancies,  repetitions,  and 
apparent  contradictions,  all  of  which  would  certainly 
have  disappeared  under  the  treatment  of  such  a  skilful 
and  experienced  scribe  as  Esdras,  had  he  undertaken  to 
re-write  or  condense  the  whole.  These  considerations 
make  it  certain,  that  the  sacred  text  has  never  been 
subjected  to  such  an  ordeal  as  the  one  through  which 
it  must  have  passed,  were  the  theory  of  Simon  any- 
thing more  than  a  groundless  conjecture. 

Huet,  Bishop  of  Avranches  (d.  1721),  considered  '  it 
most  likely,  that  until  the  time  of  Christ  the  onl}^  canon 
in  existence  was  that  in  which  Esdras  had  borne  by  far 
the  principal  part,  receiving,  however,  important  assist- 
ance from  Nehemias,  who,  as  intimated,  ^  gave  an  account 
of  his  own  doings,  and  perhaps  of  those  of  others,  adding 
to  the  canon  his  own  book,  as  Esdras  had  added  his. 
The  canon  being  thus  completed  was  approved  by  the 
Great  Synagogue  of  the  time,  the  only  bodv  competent 
to  sanction  solemnly  such  a  work.  When  the  storm  ex- 
cited by  the  persecution  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  had 
subsided,  Judas  Machabeus  "  undertook  the  care  of  the 
sacred  books,  collected  again  those  which  had  been 
lost  in  the  war,  and  replenished  the  "  library  "  of  Nehe- 
mias. The  Hellenists  highly  esteemed  the  deutero  books, 
but  never  admitted  them  into  their  canon,  nor  was  it 
until  long  after  that  the  Church  of  Christ  received 
them  into  her  canon.  According  to  Huet,  therefore,  the 
Jews,  whether  Palestinian  or   Hellenistic,  had  but  one 

'   Demonst.    Evang.y    ed.     Venet.  1733,  pp.  343,  344. 

2  II.  Mach.  ii.  13.  s  ibid.  14. 


56  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

canon,  that  of  which  Esdras  is  said  to  be  the  principal  au- 
thor ;  this  theor3-  has  been  reproduced  in  its  main  features 
and  advocated  recentl)-  by  Professor  Ubaldi  of  Rome. ' 

Frassen,  a  French  Franciscan  (d.  171 1)  whose  opinion  ' 
was  adopted  by  some  other  critics,  seems,  like  Huet, 
to  have  been  impressed,  but  in  a  different  way,  by  the 
statement  inll.Mach.ii.  He  supposed  that  a  recension  of 
the  Esdrine  canon  was  made  b)'  Nehemias ;  and  that  this 
recension  is  referred  to  in  TI.  Mach.  ii  13,  where  it  is  said 
that  "  these  same  things  were  set  down  in  the  memoirs 
and  commentaries  of  Nehemias,  when  he  made  a  h'brary 
and  gathered  together  out  of  the  countries  the  books 
of  the  prophets  and  of  David,  and  the  epistles  of  the 
Kings,  concerning  the  holy  gifts."  It  is  also  argued  by 
those  who  favor  this  theory,  that  there'  was  another 
recension  of  the  canon  by  Judas  Machabeus,  and  they 
assisfn  as  a  reason  for  this  belief  the  statement  contained 
in  the  two  verses  immediately  after  the  one  just  cited. 
"  In  like  manner  Judas  also  gathered  together  all  such 
things  as  were  lost  b}-  the  war  we  had,  and  they  are 
now  in  our  possession.  Wherefore,  if  3'ou  want  these 
things,  send  some  that  may  fetch  them."  These  passages 
were  in  the  epistles  addressed  by  the  Jews  of  Jerusa- 
lem to  their  brethren  in  Egypt,  and  warrant,  it  is  argued 
by  the  advocates  of  this  theor}',  the  conclusion  that  the 
Esdrine  canon  was  completed  by  the  labors  of  Nehe- 
mias and  Judas  Machabccus,  who  also  added  to  the  sa- 
cred collection  the  so  called  deutero  books,  after  it  had 
been  commenced  by  Esdras. 

A  theor}^  similar  in  its  main  features  to  the  preceding 
has  been  recently  advanced  by  several  German  Catholic 
critics,    as    Movers,  '   Neteler,  *    and    Danko.  '      These 

'   Ititroductio  in  Sac.  Scripttiravi.     Romse,  1878.  '^  Disqids.  bibliccs. 

3  De  uiriusgue  recens.  vat.  Jeremia  indepen. 

•*  Die  BUcher  Esdra.",  Nehemias,  und  Esther,  etc. 

''  De  .9.  Script,  ejtisqite  interpretatione  Commentarius. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  57 

writers  are  generally  of  opinion  that  the  sacred  books 
were  collected,  edited,  and  approved  three  times.  First- 
by  Esdras;  second,  by  Nehemias;  and  third,  in  the  time 
of  the  Machabees  (II.  Mach.  ii.  14).  The  Judas  men- 
tioned in  this  text  Neteler  supposes  to  have  been  not 
Judas  Machabaeus,  but  Judas  the  Essene,  who,  according 
to  Josephus  '  was  a  great  prophet  in  the  time  of  John 
Hyrcanus  and  Aristobulus.  In  fact,  this  conjecture  of 
Neteler  was  made  long  before  by  A  Lapide,  ^  and  seems 
required  b}'  the  theory,  as  the  Machabean  books  record 
events  which  happened  after  the  death  of  Judas  Mach- 
abeus.  Danko  contends  that  the  Jewish  tradition  regard- 
ing the  Great  Synagogue  with  Esdras  at  its  head  is  a 
fable,  because  there  is  no  mention  of  it  in  the  books  of 
Esdras  and  Nehemias,  and  it  is  even  contradicted  by 
Esdras  ix.,  x.  and  Nehemias  viii.  He  further  insists  that 
the  sacred  books  were  watched  over  by  the  prophets 
and  other  holy  men,  until  the  return  from  the  exile  ; 
and  that  neither  Esdras  nor  the  Great  Synagogue 
completed  the  collection  at  that  time ;  although  he 
admits  that  Esdras  did  then  make  a  collection,  a  work 
in  which,  however,  he  had  been  preceded  by  Jeremias,  as 
intimated  in  II.  Mach.  ii.  2.  To  the  collection  made  by 
Esdras,  Nehemias  added  other  books.  But  as  the 
genealogical  statements  contained  in  Paral.  and  Nehe- 
mias, and  already  referred  to, '  could  not  have  been  writ- 
ten by  either  Esdras  or  Nehemias,  these  books,  as  well  as 
others,  appeared  at  a  later  period,  and  were  added  to  the 
collection.  "  And  thus  it  seems  probable  that  the  growth 
of  the  canon  was  gradual,  and  that  it  was  at  last  finished 
in  the  time  of  the  Machabees." 

Quite  recently  Rev.  William  E.  Addis  and  Thomas 
Arnold,  late  Fellows  of  the  Royal  University  of  Ireland, 

'  Ant.,  B.  xiii.,  c.  xi.  vS  2  ;    IVars,  B.  i.,  c.  iii.,  ^  5. 
■^  See  his  Commentary, 
'  p.  48. 


58  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

and  devoted  as  well  as  learned  members  of  the  Church, 
have  expressed  themselves  regarding  the  canon  m  terms 
which,  by  many  accustomed  to  the  common  opinions 
advocated  by  Catholic  writers  on  the  subject,  will  be 
considered  bold,  novel,  and  even  startling.  After  a 
cursory  but  sufficiently  searching  examination  of  the 
evidence  in  favor  of  an  Esdrine  canon  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  a  Hellenistic  canon  on  the  other,  the  conclusion 
reached  by  these  two  critics  is  that,  "  In  any  case,  the 
Christian  Church  never  received  the  canon  of  Scripture 
from  the  Jews,  because  till  long  after  the  Jews  had 
rejected  Christ  they  had  no  fixed  canon."  This  con- 
clusion is  based  principally  on  the  now  notorious  fact 
that,  as  previously  stated,  "  During  the  first  century 
A.  D.  the  canonicity  of  Canticles  and  Ecclesiasticus  was 
still  disputed  in  the  Jewish  Schools."  ' 

Let  us  now  see  what,  according  to  their  own  state- 
ments, has  been  the  course  of  criticism  among  Protestant 
writers,  regarding  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  It 
cannot  be  doubted,  that  the  reformers  and  their  first 
successors  did  practically  accept  the  results  of  Jewish 
scholarship,  as  to  the  number  of  books  in  the  canon. 
So  says  Professor  Smith.  "^  And  although  their  great 
leader,  Luther,  expressed  himself  in  such  a  way  as  to 
show  that  he  seriously  doubted,  rather  questioned,  the 
canonicit}^  of  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles,  Esther,  Job,  and  oth- 
er books,  according  to  Reuss,  ^  it  is  certain  that  "in  the 
sixteenth  century  "  it  was  commonly  held  "in  the  Prot- 
estant churches  "  that  "  the  canon  was  completed  by  a 
body  of  men  known  as  the  Great  Synagogue  ....  and 
represented  as  a  permanent  council,  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Ezra  "  '  (Esdras).     It  was,  however,  not  then 

'   Catholic  Dictionary,  Art.  Canon  of  t/ie  Scriplme. 
•    The  O.  Tcst.  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  46. 
^   History  oj  the  C.itinn  of  the  H.  Script.,  pp.  330,  331. 
^    The  O.  Test,  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  156. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  59' 

perceived  that  there  was  much  in  the  Hebrew  canon 
which  Esdras  could  not  have  written  or  have  had  in- 
serted. This  was  discovered  afterwards,  and  some  theo- 
ry had  to  be  devised,  in  order  to  account  for  the 
presence  in  the  canon  of  statements  referring  to  events 
long  subsequent  to  the  time  in  which  Esdras  lived. 
Among  those  who  undertook  to  do  so,  Prideaux,  Prot- 
estant dean  of  Norwich,  has  been  assigned  a  prominent 
place  for  his  learning  and  industry,  but  not  for  his 
success  in  this  particular  task. 

In  fact,  Prideaux's  theory,  though  proposed  for  a 
different  purpose,  is  hardl}"  less  objectionable  than  that 
of  Richard  Simon,  which  has  just  been  discussed.  Ac- 
cordinof'  to  Prideaux,  '  *'  the  gfreat  work  of  Esdras  was 
his  collecting  together  and  setting  forth  a  correct  edi- 
tion of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which  he  labored  much  in, 
and  went  a  great  way  in  the  perfection  of  it."  Again, 
"  He  collected  together  all  the  books  of  which  the  Holy 
Scripture  did  then  consist,  and  disposed  them  in  their 
proper  order,  and  settled  the  canon  of  Scripture  for  his 
time."  ^  But  "  It  is  most  likely  that  the  two  Books  of 
Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  Esther,  as  well  as 
Malachi,  were  afterwards  added,  in  the  time  of  Simon  the 
Just,  and  that  it  was  not  till  then  that  the  Jewish  canon 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  was  fully  completed."''  More- 
over "  Ezra  ....  added  in  several  places  throughout  the 
books  of  this  edition  Avhat  appeared  necessarj^  for  the 
illustrating,  connecting,  or  completing  of  them  ;  where- 
in he  was  assisted  by  the  same  Spirit  by  which  they 
were  at  first  wrote."  ^  Prideaux  then  mentions  several 
passages,  including  the  entire  last  chapter  of  Deuter- 
onomy, which,  according  to  him,  Esdras  interpolated  in 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  adds  that,  "  Many 
more  instances  of  such  interpolated  passages  might  be 

'    Connexion,  vol.  1.,  p.  270.  -^  Ibid.,  272,  273, 

3  Ibid.,  271,  272.  •*  Ibid.,   279. 


■6o  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testa?nent. 

given."  '  For  all  this  there  is  not  a  particle  of  proof  in 
the  Scriptures  themselves,  in  the  statement  of  any  re- 
spectable ancient  writer,  or  in  any  well  authenticated 
tradition.  Besides,  the  presence  in  the  sacred  text  of 
the  passages  mentioned,  could  be  and  has  been  easih' 
explained,  without  invoking  a  wholesale  interpolation  by 
Esdras.  It  is  indeed  hard  to  see  in  what  Prideaux's 
gratuitous  supposition  (for  what  else  is  it  ?)  differs  from 
that  other,  according  to  which  Esdras,  aided  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  restored  all  the  divine  books  when  lost. 
If,  as  Prideaux  believes,  the  last  chapter  of  Deuterono- 
my was  written  by  Esdras  with  the  assistance  of  the 
holy  Spirit,  might  not  Esdras  with  the  same  assistance 
have  written  every  other  chapter  in  that  particular 
book,  or,  for  that  matter,  even  all  the  books  ?  where  is 
the  difference  ?  The  dean  has  not  failed  to  inform  his 
readers  that  some  of  the  Fathers  were  mistaken  in 
asserting,  on  the  authority  "  of  the  second  (fourth) 
apocryphal  book  of  Esdras,  that  Ezra  restored  all  the 
Scriptures,  when  lost  and  destroyed,  by  divine  revela- 
tion." "  But  these  Fathers  might  retort  by  asking  their 
censor,  in  what  does  this  differ  from  restoring  the 
whole  or  portions  thereof  by  divine  "  interpolation  "  ? 

Prideaux  wrote  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. As  an  indication  of  the  immense  stride  in 
Biblical  criticism  made  since  then  by  English  Prot- 
estants, who  in  this  department  of  science  sound  the 
key-note  for  their  transatlantic  coreligionists,  dancing 
themselves,  however,  to  the  music  of  Protestant  Ger- 
many, it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  reproduce  here 
the  substance  of  some  remarks  on  the  canon  by  Rev. 
Samuel  Davidson,  professor  of  Biblical  literature  in  the 
Independent  College,  Manchester.  This  critic,  whose 
scholarly  attainments  have  been  highly  esteemed  by  all, 
who  believe  that  the  pure  word  of  God  is  to  be  sought 

'   Connexion,  vol.  i.,  p.  279.  *  Ibid.,  270. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  6r 

in  the  Protestant  Bible  and  nowhere  else;  while  dis- 
cussing the  question  before  us,  says,  '  that  a  list  of 
canonical  books  was  drawn  up  three  times  :  first,  by 
Ezra  ;  second,  by  Nehemiah  ;  and  third,  at  a  later  period, 
when  the  youngest  portion  of  the  canon  consisted  of 
Daniel  (between  170  and  160  B.  C),  and  probably  of 
several  psalms,  which  were  inserted  in  different  places 
of  the  collection,  so  as  to  make  the  whole  number  one 
hundred  and  fifty.  The  list  continued  open,  and  no 
stringent  principle  guided  selection.  The  canon,  how- 
ever, was  not  considered  closed  in  the  first  century 
before,  and  the  first  century  after  Christ.  The  closing 
of  the  canon  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  or  at  any  time  before 
Christ,  is  a  rabbinical  fable  ;  the  wonder  is  that  any 
intelligent  Protestant  could  ever  have  believed  any- 
thing else.  There  were  doubts  about  some  portions, 
Ezekiel,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles,  Esther,  and  Proverbs. 
And  these  doubts,  though  suppressed  for  a  while 
after  32  B.  C,  re-appeared  about  A.  D.  65,  when 
all  were  admitted  to  the  canon  except  Ecclesiastes, 
which  was  probably  excluded,  but,  along  with  Canti- 
cles, was  assigned  to  the  Hagiographa  in  the  Synod 
of  Jamnia,  about  A.  D.  90.  But  as  the  Hagiogra- 
pha was  not  read  in  public,  with  the  exception  of 
Esther,  opinions  of  Jewish  Rabbins  might  still  differ 
about  Canticles  and  Ecclesiastes,  even  after  the  Synod  of 
Jamnia. 

Such,  in  a  condensed  form,  but  as  nearly  as  possible  in 
his  own  words,  is  what  Dr.  Davidson  has  written  regard- 
ing the  manner  and  time  in  which  the  Hebrew  canon 
was  formed.  Now,  before  A.  D.  90,  any  authority  which 
the  highest  spiritual  tribunal  among  the  Jews  possessed 
in  order  to  distinguish  between  divine  and  human  writ- 
ings, had  either  become  absolutely  extinct  and  disap- 
peared from  earth,  or  had  been  transferred  in  its  plen- 

i   tlncylop.  Britt.,  Canon. 


62  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

itude  to  the  Church.  If,  therefore,  Davidson  be  right, 
either  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  know  what  is  or  is 
not  God's  written  word,  and  all  discussion  about  the 
canon  of  Scripture  is  labor  lost ;  or,  outside  the  Church, 
which  succeeded  the  Synagogue,  it  is  impossible  for 
any  one  to  say  what  books  belong  to  the  Bible,  or 
whether  there  be  a  Bible  at  all,  as  that  word  is  under- 
stood. 

.  It  thus  appears  that  the  Jewish  tradition,  which 
attributed  to  Esdras  the  formation  as  well  as  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Hebrew  canon,  and  which  was  received 
as  unquestionable  by  the  most  eminent  writers  of 
Christian  antiquity,  and  by  them  transmitted  to  subse- 
quent generations,  as  erabod3'ing  a  fact  equally  certain 
almost  with  any  other  recorded  in  the  Scriptures,  has 
in  recent  times  excited  hardly  less  doubt  than  the  most  in- 
credible of  the  many  absurd  details  which  rabbinical  ex- 
aggeration has  interwoven  with  it.  Nor  is  this  remark- 
able ;  for  that  tradition  was  not  committed  to  writing 
until  long  after  Esdras  had  passed  away.  In  fact,  six  if 
not  seven  full  centuries  must  have  intervened  between  his 
death  and  the  earliest  date  at  which,  so  far  as  known, 
any  written  notice  of  that  tradition  appeared.  During 
that  long  interval,  in  the  greater  part  of  which  they 
maintained  their  national  existence,  and  enjoyed  com- 
parative tranquillity,  the  Jews  raised  not  a  monument, 
instituted  not  a  feast,  traced  not  a  single  line  in  their 
public  archives  or  private  records,  to  perpetuate  the 
recollection  of  the  event  to  which  the  tradition  in 
question  refers  ;  though  events  in  their  history  certainly 
not  more  important  than  the  settlement  of  their  canon, 
instead  of  being  exposed  to  the  danger  of  utter  oblivion 
by  being  transmitted  orally  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, were  duly  recorded,  or  publicly  commemorated 
from  year  to  year  on  some  day  especially  set  apart  for 
the  purpose  ;  or  were  so  interwoven  with  their  litera- 


TJie  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament.  63 

ture  or  religion,  that,  so  long  as  eitiier  remained,  it  might 
be  contidently  appealed  to  for  proof  that  such  events 
had  actually  (occurred.  Thus  the  Grecian  and  Eg3p- 
tian  Jews  are  said  b}'^  Philo  '  to  have  assembled  every 
)''ear  at  the  island  of  Pharos,  and  there  to  have  celebrat- 
ed by  a  public  festival  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures 
into  Greek.  And  it  is  certain  that  the  dedication  of  the 
Temple  by  Judas  Machabccus.  described  in  I.  Mach.  iv., 
was  commemorated  from  year  to  year  by  a  solemn 
octave,  which  was  called  the  Feast  of  Lights  by  Jose- 
phus,'  was  observed  in  the  time  of  Our  Lord,'  and 
appears  to  be  still  observed  by  the  Jews.  '  The  Feast 
of  Purim,  or  Lots,  was  also  instituted  to  commemorate 
the  deliverance  of  the  Jews  from  the  wicked  designs 
of  Aman,  as  related  in  the  book  of  Esther,  "  and  still  is 
celebrated  by  the  Jews."'  It  had  its  name  from  the  lots 
cast  b}^  Aman  to  fix  the  day  for  their  destruction,  and 
has  been  at  all  times  religiously  observed  by  them. 
Yet,  of  the  expurgation  and  compilation  of  their  sacred 
books  by  Esdras,  and  the  authoritative  sanction  given 
to  his  work  by  the  Great  Synagogue  at  the  same  time, 
no  monument  was  preserved,  the  event  was  honored  by 
the  institution  of  no  festival,  nor  was  there  anvthing 
written  or  said  about  it  before  the  Talmudic  period. 

Now,  from  the  time  of  Esdras  until  the  destruction  of 
the  Jewish  commonwealth,  and  even  after  that,  several 
works,  sacred  and  profane,  were  written  by  Jewish 
authors.  Many  of  them  are  still  extant ;  as,  the  deutero 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  all  the  books  of  the  New 
(if  the  Jewish  extraction  of  Luke  be  admitted),  together 
with  the  writings  of  Josephus  and  Philo,  both  of  whom 

'  Life  of  Moses,  B.  Ii.  cvii.  =  A7it.,  B.  xii.,  c.  7,  §  7. 

^  John  X.  22. — See  also  Comnient.  of  the  Methodist  Adam  Clarke. 
*  Calmet,  on  I.  Mach.  iv.  59. 

5  Milman,  Hist,  of  the  Jews,  Vol.  i,  477;  iii.  36,  449 — Calmer,  Comment,  on 
Esther,  ix.  ZX.  "• 


64  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

were  thoroughly  versed  in  the  history  and  literature  01 
their  own  nation.  Yet  the  reader  will  peruse  all  these 
writings  from  beginning  to  end,  without  finding  a 
single  allusion  to  Esdras  as  connected  in  any  way  with 
the  formation  of  the  Hebrew  canon  ;  although  the 
Scriptures  themselves  are  ver^/  frequently  mentioned 
therein,  thus  rendering  it  certain  that  these  were  not 
only  in  existence,  but  that  they  were  well  known.  In- 
deed, the  notion  of  a  canon  or  collection  of  sacred  books 
bv  Esdras  is  never  once  hinted  at  by  any  of  these  writers. 
Such  persistent  silence  on  the  part  of  those  who  wrote 
the  Old  Testament  deutero  books,  of  those  who  wrote 
the  New  Testament,  as  well  as  of  Josephus  and  Philo, 
especially  in  regard  to  a  matter  which,  at  least  for  some 
of  them,  must  have  had  some  interest,  if  not  consider- 
able importance,  is  exceedingly  singular  and  suggestive. 
Though  the  silence  of  all  these  writers,  and  indeed,  so 
far  as  is  known,  of  all  other  Jewish  authors,  from  the  end 
of  the  Babylonian  captivity  to  long  after  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  period,  may  amount  to  no  more  than  a 
negative  proof  that  the  relation  of  Esdras  to  the  Script- 
ure was  nothing  more  than  simply  what  is  said  of  him 
therein  :  that  "  he  was  a  ready  scribe  in  the  Law  of  Mo- 
ses ;  had  prepared  his  heart  to  seek  the  law  of  the  Lord, 
and  to  do  and  to  teach  in  Israel  the  commandments  and 
judgment,"  as  is  stated  in  the  book  of  which  he  is  believed 
to  be  the  author  (Esdras  vii.  6,  10);  and  that  at  the 
request  of  the  people  he  brought  the  Book  of  the  Law 
of  Moses  before  them,  and  read  it  to  them,  and  the 
Levites  interpreted  it  to  them  (Nehemias  viii.) — yet  that 
proof  is  not  to  be  ruled  out,  unless  direct  and  positive  evi- 
dence to  the  contrary  be  produced.  And,  certainly  the 
Jewish  tradition  about  the  origin  of  the  canon  is  not  of 
a  character  to  be  treated  as  such. 

Besides,  when  Esdras  and  Nehemias  were  giving  an 
account  of  all   that  had   been   done   by  the   former  in 


The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament.  65 

rebuilding  the  temple,  restoring  religious  worship  and 
discipline,  instructing  the  people,  and  reading  the  law  to 
them,  it  must  appear  unaccountable  that  nothing  is 
said  by  either  about  one  of  the  most  important  services 
which  Esdras  is  reported  to  have  performed,  that  of 
enabling  for  all  time  to  come  his  coreligionists  to  dis- 
tinguish with  unerring  certainty  sacred  from  profane 
compositions,  by  providing  them  with  a  catalogue  of 
those  books  which,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others,  were 
to  be  regarded  as  dictated  b}'  God  himself.  Nor  is  this 
all.  Josephus,  as  is  well  known,  not  only  recounts  the 
facts  recorded  in  the  sacred  history  of  the  Jews,  but 
comprises  in  his  writings  mau}^  statements  which  are 
not  found  in  that  history,  and  which  he  must  have  fab- 
ricated out  of  national  vanity,  or  derived  from  the  tradi- 
tional lore  current  among  his  countrymen.  Thus  he  oc- 
cupies the  entire  second  chapter  of  the  twelfth  book  of 
his  Antiquities  with  the  story  current  among  the  Jews  of 
his  time  about  the  incidents  connected  with  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Greek — a  story 
attributed  to  Aristeas,  a  Jew,  and  I'epeated  by  Philo,  ' 
another  Jew,  before  Josephus  embodied  it  in  his  work. 
Now,  can  it  be  supposed,  that  such  a  writer  would  have 
omitted  to  tell  his  readers,  that  an  authoritative  cata- 
logue of  the  divine  books  was  made  by  Esdras,  had 
there  been  at  the  time  he  composed  his  Antiquities  any 
^testimony,  written  or  traditional,  to  show  that  such  was 
f  the  case  ?  Yet  he  never  once  refers  to  the  matter, 
though  he  devotes  the  greater  part  of  chapter  v.,  book 
XT.,  of  his  Antiquities  to  the  doings  of  Esdras  at  Babylon 
and  Jerusalem,  and  even  states  that  Esdras  from  morn- 
ing to  noon  read  the  laws  of  Moses  to  the  people  on 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  When  he  so  stated,  then,  if 
ever,  he  was  bound  to  place  on  record  the  tradition 
which  assigned  to  Esdras  the  authorship  of  the  canon, 

'   Life  of  Moses,  6.   ii. 


66  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

had  any  such  tradition  been  known  to  him.  Once  more ; 
when  against  Apion.  i.  8  Josephus  had  occasion  to  make 
mention  of  the  22  books,  the  circumstances  were  such  as 
to  call  for  some  reference  to  the  labors  of  Esdras  on  the 
canon,  had  Josephus  ever  heard  of  these  labors.  That 
on  neither  occasion  did  he  make  any  allusion  whatever 
to  the  subject  can  hardly  be  explained  in  any  other  way, 
than  by  supposing  that,  though  well  informed  about  all 
Esdras  had  done  in  restoring  the  religious  and  political 
institutions  of  the  Jews,  he  had  never  heard  that  Esdras 
had    provided    them   with    an   approved   canon    of   the 

Scriptures. 

If  therefore  it  be  true,  as  the  Rabbins  maintain,  that 
Esdras  was  the  author  of  their  canon,  and  even  worthy  to 
have  been  the  lawgiver  if  Moses  had  not  preceded  him, ' 
is  it  not  surprising,  that  in  the  only  three  instances — 
in  which  he  is  referred  to  in  his  relation  to  the  Script- 
ures, before  the  Talmudic  period — once  in  the  book  which 
goes  by  his  own  name,  once  in  that  of  Nehemias,  and 
once  in  the  writings  of  Josephus — he  should  be  mentioned 
simply  as«  ready  scribe  in  the  Lazv  of  Moses,  a  reader  of 
the  Laiv,  very  skilful  in  the  Lazv  of  Moses,  but  nowhere  as 
the  author  of  the  canon  ;  that  even  no  notice  whatever 
should  have  been  taken  of  his  reported  connection  with 
the  canon  by  any  of  the  writers  of  the  deutero  books  of 
the  Old  Testament,  or  of  the  books  of  the  New — his  name 
not  being  even  mentioned  in  any  of  the  former  or  latter, 
and  actually  omitted  in  the  list  of  illustrious  men  con- 
tained in  Ecclesiasticus,'  while  Zorobabel,  Nehemias,  and 
Simon  the  Just  appear   therein  ;   and  that  the  earliest 
reference  to  him,  as  in  anj'  way  concerned  with  or  en- 
gaged in  the  formation  of  a  canon,  has  to  be  sought  in 
the  apocryphal  book  called  IV.  Esdras ;  if  it  be  not  the 
production  of  an  age  later  than  that  in  which  the  Tal- 

'  Bab.  Sanhed.,  c.  ii.,  f.  21. 
2  Eccli.  xlix.    1. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  6y 

mud  appeared?  In  other  words,  as  before  remarked, 
some  six  or  seven  centuries  had  come  and  gone  since 
the  generation  to  which  Esdras  belonged  had  passed 
away,  before  anything,  so  far  as  can  now  be  known, 
had  been  said  or  written  regarding  the  eminent  services 
he  is  reported  to  have  rendered  by  his  labors  on  the  sa- 
cred compositions  of  those  inspired  men  by  whom  he 
had  been  preceded.  On  the  strength  of  rabbinical  testi- 
mony it  was  once  generally  believed,  that  Esdras  substi- 
tuted the  present  Hebrew  square  letters  for  the  older 
Semitic  characters,  in  which  the  Scriptures  were  origi- 
nally written.  That  the  change  was  made,  is  certain,  but 
when  or  by  whom  nobod}-  now  knows.  That  he  also 
introduced  the  vowel  points  into  the  text  was  also  con- 
sidered indisputably  certain.  In  fact,  many  Protestants 
believed  them  to  be  essential  parts  of  the  text.  That, 
however,  is  no  longer  believed  by  any  one.  For  it  is  now 
universally  admitted,  that  these  points  were  not  invented 
until  the  sixth  or  seventh  century  of  our  era. '  Thus  the 
traditions,  which  have  so  long  clustered  around  the  sac- 
red memory  of  Esdras,  disappear  one  by  one,  till  at  last 
probably  nothing  will  be  left  to  take  their  place,  except 
what  is  told  in  the  simple  but  inspired  words  which  he 
himself  and  Nehemias  have  written. 

1  R.  Cornely,  S.  J.,  Introd.  in  S.  Scrip.,\Q\.  i.,  pp.  241,  242. 


CHAPTER  V. 


the  deutero  books  originally  included  in  the 
Jewish  canon. 

At  the  very  least  it  is,  therefore,  not  at  all  certain  that 
Esdras,  with  or  without  the  Great  Synagogue,  was  the 
author  of  the  Hebrew  canon.  Nor  is  there  any  trustwor- 
thy human  testimony  to  prove  where  or  by  whom  that 
Canon  was  made  ;  while  critics,  in  searching  the  Script- 
ures for  light  on  the  subject,  have  so  far  been  unable  to 
reach  a  common  conclusion.  But  whereas  even  Rab- 
bins in  the  great  assembly  at  Jamnia, '  about  A.  D.  90, 
felt  at  liberty  to  express  doubts  regarding  the  canonicity 
of  Ecclesiastes  and  Canticles,  it  would  seem  to  follow, 
that  the  collection  as  a  whole  could  not  have  been  defi- 
nitely settled  much,  if  even  at  all,  before  that  time.  The 
discussion  at  Jamnia,  as  reported  in  the  Mishna,  Tract 
ladaini  iii.  5,  is  worth  being  repeated  here. 

"All  the  Hol}^  Scriptures  defile''  the  hands  :  Canticles 
and  Ecclesiastes  defile  the  hands.  R.  Judah  said,  Can- 
ticles defiles  the  hands,  and  Ecclesiastes  is  disputed.' 
R.  Jose  said,  Ecclesiastes  does  not  defile  the  hands,  and 
Canticles  is  disputed.  R.  Simon  said,  Ecclesiastes 
belongs  to  the  light  things  of  the  school  of  Shammai, 

'  This  was  a  town  in  the  territory  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  where  the  Jews  had  a 
celebrated  school  and  sanhedrim.  It  is  also  called  Jebna  or  Yeiiina  and  Jab- 
neh.  —  Geography  of  Palestine,  by  Ritter,  iii.,  244. 

•  In  order  to  "  put  a  hedge  about  the  law  "  as  directed  in  the  Talmud  (supra 
p.  33),  and  thus  prevent  the  sacred  books  from  being  used  universally  or  for 
common  purposes,  the  Rabbins  decided  that  their  touch  "defiles  the  hands  " 
and  food,  thus  communicating  legal  uncleanness. 

68 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  69 

and  the  heavy  things  of  the  school  of  Hillel  (i.  e.,  the 
former  is  more  strict  about  the  matter  than  the  latter). 
R.  Simeon,  son  of  Azai,  said,  I  received  it  as  a  tradition 
from  the  seventy-two  elders,  that  this  point  was  decided 
on  that  day,  when  the  ofhce  was  assigned  to  R.  Eleazar, 
son  of  Azarias.  R.  Akiba  said,  by  no  means ;  no  Isra- 
elite has  ever  doubted  that  Canticles  defiles  the  hands  : 
for  no  day  in  the  history  of  the  world  is  to  be  more 
esteemed  than  that  in  which  Israel  received  this  book. 
For  all  the  Hagiographa  are  sacred,  but  Canticles  is 
particularly  sacred.  If  there  has  been  any  dispute,  it 
was  about  Ecclesiastes.  R.  Johanan,  the  son  of  Josua, 
the  son  of  the  father-in-law  of  R.  Akiba,  said:  so,  as  the 
son  of  Azai  said,  it  was  disputed,  and  so  it  was  decided." 
Similar  disputes  about  Proverbs  are  found  in  Tr. 
Sabbath  30;  about  Ezechiel  in  Tr.  Sabb.  13  ;  about 
Esther,  in  Tr.  Sanhedr.  100,  etc. 

To  impair  the  force  of  this  testimon}-,  it  has  been  ob- 
served, that  these  doubts  and  denials  no  more  prove 
that  the  canonicity  of  the  books  in  question  was  not 
admitted  by  the  Jews  at  the  time,  than  does  the  rejec- 
tion of  Job,  Canticles,  and  Proverbs  by  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia  prove,  that  these  books  were  not  then  in  the 
Christian  canon.  This  answer,  however,  is  quite  incom- 
petent. For  Theodore  in  life  was  known  as  a  heretic 
on  other  points,  and  as  such  publicly  condemned  after 
death  by  the  Fifth  Ecumenical  council ;  whereas  the  rab- 
binical disputants  who  wrangled  over  and  denied  the 
canonicity  of  Canticles,  Ecclesiastes,  etc.,  were  regarded 
as  otherwise  orthodox  by  their  own  brethren. 

In  consequence  of  the  controversies  now  known  to 
have  been  carried  on  among  the  Rabbins  regarding  the 
canon  at  so  late  a  period,  Protestant  writers,  to  whom 
at  first  the  rejection  of  the  entire  Old  Testament  would 
have  appeared  hardly  less  impious  than  the  denial 
of  an  Esdrine  canon,  are  now  very   generally  disposed 


70  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

to  hold,  that  the  Old  Testament  canon  was  not  definitely 
"  fixed  until  the  close  of  the  first  century."  '  Thus,  in  a 
matter  to  them  of  prime  importance,  there  have  been 
three  theories  among  the  Reformers  and  their  descend- 
ants. First,  it  was  believed  that  the  Old  Testament 
canon  was  the  work  of  Esdras.  Second,  that,  though 
principally  the  work  of  Esdras,  it  continued  to  grow 
under  the  care  of  other  authorized  persons,  until  brought 
to  its  present  condition.  Thii-d,  as  now  held  by  the 
most  advanced  Protestant  critics,  it  was  not  sealed, 
settled,  and  approved  by  the  Jews  until  about  the  end  of 
the  first  century  after  Christ.  For  Catholics  the  ques- 
tion has  very  little  importance,  as  their  creed  is  regu- 
lated, not  by  what  this  or  that  book  says,  but  by  what 
the  Church  teaches.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  they  would 
feel  much  interest  in  its  discussion,  were  it  not  that 
attempts  at  repudiating  writings  proclaimed  divine  by 
the  Church  have  forced  on  them  the  duty  of  defending 
their  canonicity.  In  doing  so  they  have  expressed  a 
variety  of  opinions.  But  all  these  opinions  may  be 
reduced  to  three,  with  some  shades  of  difference,  partic- 
ularly in  the  details  of  the  first.  One  is  that  held  (as 
already  explained)  b}-  Genebrard,  Frassen,  Huet,  Danko, 
Neteler,  Movers,  Ubaldi  and  others.  All  these  critics 
believe,  that  until  the  time  of  Our  Lord  there  had  been 
but  one  canon,  that  canon  according  to  some  being  the 
present  Hebrew  or  Palestinian  canon,  which,  however, 
was  superseded  by  the  Hellenistic  or  Alexandrian,  when 
Our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  delivered  the  latter  to  the 
Church  ;  according  to  others  of  the  same  school  being, 
indeed,  the  present  Hebrew  canon,  enlarged,  however,  by 
the  addition  of  the  deutero  books,  which  were  inserted 
therein  b}'  competent  authority  before  the  time  of  Our 
Lord.  A  second  opinion  is  that  there  were  two  canons, 
one  the  Palestinian,  comprising  the  books  now  in  the 

'    The  Old  Testament  m  the  Jervish  Church,  p.  154. 


TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  yi 

Hebrew  canon,  another  the  Alexandrian,  being  the  Pal- 
estinian enlarged  by  the  addition  of  the  deutero  books. 
This  opinion,  as  we  have  seen,  is  advocated  by  Serarius, 
Tournemine,  Vincenzi,  Franzeli«,  as  well  as  others  (the 
latest  of  whom  is  Cornely),  and  even  some  non-Catholic 
critics.  A  third  opinion,  which  has  been  advanced  by 
the  writers  of  The  Catholic  Dictionary,  is  too  recent  to 
have  attracted  much  attention,  but  may  in  time  be 
considered  equally  probable  with  either  of  the  other 
two,  if  it  does  not  supersede  both.  Its  advocates  deny 
that  the  Jews  had  a  fixed  canon  until  long  after  the  time 
of  Christ ;  and  in  confirmation  of  their  denial  remind 
their  readers,  that  it  is  in  evidence  that  even  after  the 
time  of  Christ  the  canonicity  of  several  books  now  found 
in  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  was  a  subject  of  dispute 
among  rabbinical  teachers,  which  would  not  have  been 
the  case,  had  there  been  at  the  timei,  a  Hebrew  canon  ; 
that,  although  no  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament 
deutero  books  are  found  in  the  New  Testament,  just  as 
several  Old  Testament  proto  books  are  not  once  cited 
by  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  yet  allusions  in 
the  New  Testament  to  these  deutero  books  are  frequent 
and  unmistakable  ;  that  out  of  about  350  quotations 
from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New,  300  are  from  LXX, 
which  contains  the  deutero  books  ;  that  the  New  Tes- 
tament will  be  searched  in  vain  for  any  list  of  Old  Tes- 
tament books  received  b}'  Our  Lord  and  His  apostles  ; 
and  that  it  is  proved  from  tradition  that  the  full  list  of 
Old  Testament  books,  including  the  deutero,  was  author- 
ized by  the  apostles.  There  is  not  certainly  in  Script- 
ure nor  in  tradition  anything  to  prove,  that  before  the 
time  of  Christ  there  was  a  definite  number  of  sacred 
writings  universally  received  as  such  by  the  Jews. 
They  had  some  that  were  well  known  and  recognized 
among  them  as  divine  ;  yet  it  is  certain  they  had  others, 
which   are    now  in  their  canon,   but    which    were    not 


72      '  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

placed  thereon  by  them,  until  many  years  after  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  era.  Indeed,  the  canon 
of  the  Church,  embracing  both  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment deutero  as  well  aS  proto  books,  may  have  been 
settled  before  anything  of  the  kind  was  done  for  their 
Scriptures  by  the  Jews,  who  may  have  been  induced  to 
move  at  last  in  this  matter  by  the  example  of  their 
Christian  neighbors,  who  had  adopted  the  Alexandrian 
canon. 

Just  here,  therefore,  seems  to  be  the  proper  place 
for  some  remarks  on  the  Old  Testament,  which,  con- 
taining the  Alexandrian  canon,  circulated  among  the 
Hellenists  for  over  two  hundred  years  before  the  com- 
ins:  of  Our  Lord.  That  volume,  divested  of  all  the 
fabulous  details  with  which  the  Jews  have  endeavored 
to  embellish  its  origin,  and  which  even  some  of  the 
early  Christians  regarded  as  sober  histor}-,  is  a  Greek 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  contains, 
besides,  some  other  books,  originally  written  in  Greek 
by  Jewish  authors.  It  was  made  in  Alexandria,  Egypt, 
— being  therefore  sometimes  called  the  Alexandrian  ver- 
sion— was  commenced  hardly,  if  anv,  later  than  290  B. 
C,  and  was  completed  at  least  very  soon  after.  All  this 
is  certain.  But  it  is  also  called  the  Septuagint — LXX — 
because  it  is  said  to  have  been  made  by  72 — in  round 
numbers  70— interpreters,  six  from  each  of  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel,  whom  Eleazar  the  High  Priest,  at  the 
request  of  king  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  sent  from  Jerusa- 
lem for  the  purpose.  Though  originally  intended  to 
meet  a  want  felt  principally  by  the  Jews  of  Alexandria, 
who  were  ignorant  not  onlv  of  Hebrew,  but  of  the 
language  which  had  superseded  it  in  Palestine,  and  in 
which  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  there  explained  to 
the  people,  the  Septuagint,  as  Protestant  writers  admit," 

'  Scaliger,  Animnd.    in  Euseb.  :   Walton,  Proleg.  ix.    15;  Piideaux,  Conin-x- 
ion.  I'ait  II.,  B.  i.,  p.  40;   Davidson,  on  Septiias;.,  Kitlo's  Cycl. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  73 

was  soon  spread  abroad,  and  read  by  the  Jews  in  the 
synagogues  throughout  Egypt,  the  whole  of  Asia,  and 
Northern  Africa.  And  while  this  was  the  case,  these 
Jews  were  recognized  as  orthodox  b}'-  their  brethren  in 
Jerusalem,  as  is  evident  from  the  letters  addressed 
by  the  latter  to  their  brethren  in  Eg3^pt,  and  found 
in  II.  Mach.,  a  book  written,  according  to  the  best  Prot- 
estant critics,  '  about  150  B.  C.  That  this  version  was 
known  to  and  tolerated,  if  not  approved,  by  the  highest 
ecclesiastical  authority  in  Jerusalem,  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that,  as  Adam  Clarke,  a  learned  Methodist 
minister,  confesses  in  his  Conniieiitary  on  Acts  vii.  14, 
St.  Stephen  quoted  the  Septuagintin  his  defence  before 
the  council  at  Jerusalem,  without  a  word  of  reproof 
from  his  judges  or  accusers.  Walton"  goes  even 
farther,  declaring  that  "  the  authoritv  of  this  version  be- 
came so  great ....  even  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  that  it 
was  read  publicly  in  the  Synagogue  ; "  that  ''  Philo,"  a 
learned  Jew  of  Alexandria,  "and  Josephus,"  a  native  of 
Jerusalem,  a  priest  and  a  professed  member  of  the 
strictest  Jewish  sect — the  Pharisees — "  quoted  it  "  in 
their  writings  ;  ^  that  "  Josephus,  contra  Apion.,  cited  some 
passages  from  the  deutero  books ;  *  that  "  the  apostles 
and  evangelists  follow  it  in  quoting  the  Scriptures,  and 
in  their  writings,  as  it  were,  consecrated  it ;  "  *  and  that 
"  the  apostles  delivered  it  to  the  Church,  when  by  it 
they  had  subjugated  the  world  to  Christ."  '  Davidson 
asserts, '  when  speaking  of  the  Septuagint,  that  Philo 
and  Josephus  adopted  it ;  and  it  was  universally  re- 
ceived by  the  early  Christians.  Even  the  Talmud 
makes  honorable  mention  of  its  origin."  Prideaux,  as 
notorious  for  his  anti-Catholic  prejudices,  as  he  was  re- 

1  Prideaux,  Con.,  Part  II.,  B.  iii.,  p.  127;  Kitto's  Cycl.,  II.  Mach. 

2  Proleg.  ix.  2.  ^  Ibid.  15. 
4  Ibid.  ix.  13.  *  Ibid.  56. 

«  Ibid.  '  Kitto's  Cycl.,   Sept. 


74  The  Canon  of  the  Old  TcstamoLt. 

markable  for  his  literar)-  industry,  tells '  his  readers 
that  "  when  the  Septuagint  was  completed,  the  Jews 
of  Alexandria  had  the  stated  lessons  read  out  of  it  in 
their  synagogues,  and  they  had  copies  of  it  at  home, 
for  their  own  private  use  ;  "  '  although,  as  he  correctly 
observes,  afterwards,  "  as  it  grew  into  use  among  the 
Christians,  it  grew  out  of  credit  with  the  Jews,"'  the 
reason  being,  that  the  latter  were  unable  to  answer  the 
arguments  based  upon  it  by  the  advocates  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  and  at  last,  in  the  second  century,  substi- 
tuted another  Greek  translation,  prepared  by  Aquila, 
one  of  their  own  proselytes,  and  a  renegade  from 
Christianity.  Stackhouse,  also  referring  to  the  subject, 
remarks  that  of  this  kind  of  Jews  (Hellenists),  we  are 
told,  there  w^ere  great  numbers  in  Jerusalem,  where 
there  was  a  synagogue  particularly  appointed  for  such  as 
understood  no  other  language  than  Greek,  and  where 
the  version  of  the  LXX  was  constantly  read  in  their 
assemblies."  * 

There  is  therefore  enough  and  more  than  enough  of 
testimony  b)'^  the  most  respectable  Protestant  writers, 
to  make  it  certain,  that  the  onl}-  copy  of  the  Scriptures 
in  use  among  the  Hellenists,  wherever  they  found  them- 
selves, in  or  out  of  Palestine,  from  the  third  century 
B.  C.  to  the  second  A.  D.,  was  the  Septuagint.  There 
is  also  at  hand  abundant  testimony  of  the  same  character 
to  prove,  that  those  Jews  who,  whether  at  home  or 
abroad,  read  and  studied  the  Scriptures  in  this  version, 
maintained  not  only  friendly  relations  but  religious 
communion  with  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  at  Jerusa- 
lem. In  fact,  this  follows  necessarily  from  the  preceding 
testimony  itself.  For,  the  Septuagint  could  not  have 
been  "  read  publicly  in  the  synagogue  "  at  Jerusalem, 
nor  would  "  a  synagogue  have  been  appointed  "  there 

'  Con.,  Part  II.,  B.  i.,  40.  "^  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.  41.  ••  Hist,  of  the  Piblc,  p.  I061. 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  75 

for  "  the  constant  reading  of  the  Lxx  "  to  or  by  those 
who  "  understood  no  other  language  than  Greek,"  had 
not  these  Greek-speaking  Jews,  or  Hellenists, '  enjoved 
religious  fellowship  with  the  people  of  Jerusalem,  and 
those  who  there  directed  public  worship  or  occupied 
the  chair  of  Moses.  For  all  Jews,  abroad  as  well  as  at 
home,  Jerusalem  was  a  center  of  unity,  and  "all  the 
Jews  throughout  the  habitable  earth,  and  those  that 
worshipped  God,  nay,  even  those  of  Asia  and  Europe, 
sent  their  contributions  to  it,  and  this  from  ancient 
times."'  The  generosit}^  displayed  by  Alexander, 
Alabarch  at  Alexandria,  who  manifested  his  piety  as  a 
Jew  by  enriching  nine  gates  of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem 
with  silver  and  gold, '  must  have  had  many  imitators 
among  Jews  of  his  class,  everywhere.  Indeed,  Dr. 
Davidson  has  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  "  the  Jews  of 
Egypt  looked  upon  Jerusalem  as  their  city,  and  the 
Sanhedrim  of  Jerusalem  as  their  ecclesiastical  rulers."  ' 
It  is  true  that  Onias,  the  legitimate  high  priest,  having 
been  driven  out  of  Jerusalem,  had  in  the  nome  of  Helio- 
polis  in  Egypt  erected  at  Leontopolis  a  temple,  in  which 
religious  worship  was  performed  ;  and  that  the  stricter 
Jews  may  have  regarded  the  innovation  as  schismatical, 
at  least  in  its  tendency  ;  yet  even  they  appear  to  have 
extended  to  it  a  certain  degree  of  toleration,  while  the 
bare  mention  of  the  temple  at  Garizim  was  certain  to 
excite  a  feeling  of  contempt  and  horror  in  the  soul  of 
every  orthodox  Israelite.  At  any  rate,  as  Professor 
Smith  has  said,  speaking  of  the  Hellenists,  "there  is  not 

^  From  Hellenes,  — Gv&ek'^,. 

-  Josephus,  Ant..  B.  xiv.  c.  vii.  3;  B.  xvi.  c.  vi.  ^  2-7:  B.  xviii.  c.  ix.  §  i. 

'  Origin  of  tliis  word  doubtful ;  it  is  applied  to  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  Jews 
at  Alexan'ria.  and  though  it  may  sometimes  mean  a  tax  collector,  it  is  here 
probably  synonymous  with  ethnarch,  a  deputy  governor.  As  an  apparent  com- 
pound of  alios  and  a/rlie,  it  Would  seem  to  mean  •'  a  ruler  of  the  foreign  element 
in  a  population." 

''  Jos.,  IFars,  15.  v.,  c.  v..  §  3;  Aiil..  B.  xx.,  c.  v.,  §  2. 

■''  Kitto's  Cyclop.,   Seplnagint. 


76  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

the  slightest  evidence  that  they  were  regarded  as 
heretics,  using  an  inferior  Bible,  or  in  any  way  falling 
short  of  all  the  requisites  of  true  Judaism,  ...  In  the 
time  of  Christ  there  were  many  Hellenistic  Jews  in  Jeru- 
salem, with  synagogues  of  their  own,  where  the  Greek 
version  was  in  regular  use  ....  Hellenists  and  Hebrews, 
the  Septuagint  and  the  original  text,  met  at  Jerusalem 
without  schism  or  controversy.  The  divergencies  of  the 
Septuagint  must  have  been  patent  to  all  Jerusalem, 
yet  we  find  no  attempt  to  condemn  or  suppress  the  ver- 
sion." *  Elsewhere  he  tells  us,  "  Josephus,  though  an 
orthodox  Pharisee,  makes  use  of  the  LXX,  even  where  it 
departs  from  the  Hebrew  (I.  Esdras).'"  Any  one,  in 
fact,  who  reads  what  Josephus  has"  written  in  Book  XL, 
chapter  iii.,  of  his  Antiquities,  will  find  that  he  follows 
the  account  he  found  in  IH.  Esdras,  rather  than  that 
contained  in  the  Hebrew  I.  Esdras.  Is  it  not  possible 
that  the  Historian  meant  to  include  III.  Esdras  instead 
of  I.  Esdras  among  "  the  twenty-two  divine  books," 
which  he  mentions,  while  writing  against  Apion  ?  ^  This, 
however,  by  the  way.  For  the  point  here  under  con- 
sideration has  been  fairly  well  proved,  namely,  that  the 
Hellenists  were  recognized  at  Jerusalem  as  orthodox 
Jews.  Indeed,  to  be  convinced  that  such  was  the  case, 
the  reader  need  only  consult  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
ii.,  vi.,  ix. 

But  is  there  any  reason  for  believing,  that  the  copy  of 
the  Scriptures  used  by  the  Hellenists,  thus  clearly 
shown  to  have  been  in  communion  with  the  supreme 
religious  authorit)^  at  Jerusalem,  included  the  deutero 
books  ?  Yes,  the  very  best  of  reasons,  if  conclusions 
derived  from  the  admissions  of  learned  Protestants,  nay, 
even  the  positive  statements  of  such  critics  to  that  effect, 

'   The  Old  T.  ill  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.    100,  loi. 
^  Ibid.  402. 
»  B.  i.,  s^  8 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  jy 

can  be  appealed  to  as  a  proof  of  the  fact.  That  there  is 
such  testimony  at  hand,  the  following  references  will 
place  beyond  doubt.  Walton  '  tells  his  readers  that  "  the 
apocryphal  (as  he  calls  the  deutero)  books,  as  they  were 
the  productions  or  different  authors,  were  written  at 
different  times,  some  in  Hebrew,  some  in  Greek  ;  and 
though  they  were  first  received  by  the  Hellenists, 
nevertheless,  when  they  were  compacted  into  one  vol- 
ume cannot  be  precisely  assigned.  This,  however,  is 
clear,  that  the  Church  received  them  from  the  Hellenis- 
tic Jews."  If  the  Hellenists  were  the  first  to  receive 
these  books,  and  the  Church  received  them  from  the 
Hellenists,  then  certainly  the  latter,  before  and  at  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  era  at  the  latest,  while 
recognized  as  consistent  Jews  at  Jerusalem,  had  the 
deutero  books  in  their  copies  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
and  not  only  in  those  copies,  but  mixed  among  the  proto 
books ;  not  separated  from  them  or  added  by  way  of  an 
appendix,  but  inserted  here  and  there  as  integral  parts 
of  one  volume,  just  as  they  appear  at  present  in  all 
printed  copies,  and  even  in  the  most  ancient  manuscripts, 
as  the  Vatican,  Alexandrian,  Sinaitic,  and  Parcisian.  And 
no  unprejudiced  reader,  after  examining  one  of  these 
copies,  could  reach  any  other  conclusion,  than  that  in 
point  of  authority  the  deutero  were  considered  in  no 
way  inferior  to  the  proto  books.  Dr.  Davidson^  is 
therefore  compelled  to  admit  that  "  the  very  way  in 
which  apocryphal  (so  he  calls  the  deutero)  are  inserted 
among  canonical  books  in  the  Alexandrian  version, 
shows  the  equal  rank  assigned  to  both."  Throughout 
the  East,  as  well  as  the  West,  all  Bibles  in  the  hands  of 
Christians  generally  contained  the  deutero  interspersed 
among  the  proto  books,  up  till  the  sixteenth  century. 
For  it  was  not  until  1526  that  Lonicer,  in  his  edition  of 
the  Septuagint,   with  sacrilegious  hands  separated  the 

■*  Prolog,  ix.  13.  -  Encycl.  Biitl.,   Canon. 


y%  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

deutero  books  from  those  in  the  Jewish  canon.  His 
example  was  soon  followed  by  a  countryman  of  con- 
genial spirit,  Martin  Luther,  who  in  his  translation  placed 
the  deutero  scriptures  between  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment. Indeed,  Martin  seems  to  have  entertained  this 
project  as  early  as  1523,  when  he  commenced  the  pub- 
lication of  his  translation  in  parts.  At  all  events,  after 
his  translation  appeared,  the  arrangement  which  he 
has  the  credit  of  inventing,  against  the  unanimous  pro- 
test of  Christian  antiquity,  was  preserved  generally 
in  all  Protestant  Bibles  till  1827,  when  the  absolute  ex- 
clusion of  the  deutero  books  from  the  Bible  was  decreed 
by  the  London  Bible  Society,  after  a  long  and  acrimo- 
nious controversy  with  the  branch  societies,  especially  of 
the  Scotch  Kirk.  This  arbitrary  decision  was  vehe- 
mently, but  unsuccessfully,  opposed  by  the  continental 
societies  and  many  prominent  Protestant  ministers.  It 
is  remarkable  that  from  first  to  last  not  one  among  the  dis- 
putants even  seems  to  have  suspected,  that  Esther  should 
have  been  excluded  w^ith  the  other  deutero  books  ;  for, 
whether  the  reader  be  guided  by  Jewish  or  Christian 
tradition,  he  will  find  that  Esther's  claim  to  proto  canon- 
icalness  is  no  better  than  that  of  any  among  those  books. 
The  remark  of  Vossius  is  somewhat  to  the  point,  as  tend- 
ing to  show  that  the  Hebrew  canon  had  by  no  means 
that  fixed,  definite  character,  with  which  it  is  so  often 
credited.  Having  occasion  to  refer  to  the  additions  in 
the  book  of  Esther,  that  writer  says, '  "  Because  that 
book  in  not  a  few  places  includes  more  in  the  Greek 
translation  than  in  the  Hebrew,  it  is  commonly  sup- 
posed that  these  additions  have  been  made  by  the 
Greek  interpreter.  I,  however,  have  a  far  different 
opinion,  nor  do  I  doubt  but  that  the  discrepancy  in 
question  resulted  from  the  fact,  that  the  Hebrews  had 
two  editions,  one  larger,  the  other  smaller."     These  ad- 

'  Vincenzii  Sessio  quarta  Cone.   Trid.,  pars,  ii.,  p.  35. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  79 

ditions  were  therefore,  if  Vossius  be  correct,  not  only 
in  the  Septuagint  before  it  was  adopted  by  the  Chris- 
tians, but  even  in  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  at  the 
time  it  was  translated  into  Greek,  about  or  not  long 
after  290  B.  C.  And  might  not  the  other  deutero  books, 
at  least  such  of  them  as  were  then  written,  have  been 
found  at  the  same  time  on  what  was  generally  con- 
sidered the  roll  of  sacred  Scriptures  ?  But  in  that 
hypothesis,  a  by  no  means  improbable  one,  since  it  is 
implied  in  the  admission  of  Vossius,  what  becomes  of 
the  story  about  the  Esdrine  origin  of  the  Old  Testament 
canon  ? 

Again,  in  deciding' whether  the  Old  Testament,  as 
used  by  the  Hellenists,  included  the  deutero  Scriptures, 
due  attention  should  be  paid  to  the  contents  of  the  Old 
Latin  Vulgate  or  Veins  Itala,  as  it  is  sometimes  called. 
It  was,  as  all  know,  simply  a  Latin  version  of  the  Septua- 
gint,  made  in  the  very  infancy  of  the  Church.  "  Some,'" 
says  Walton,'  "  have  not  hesitated  to  refer  it  to  a  disciple 
of  the  apostles  ....  and  though  they  assert  this  without 
authority,  it  is  probable,  nevertheless,  that  it  was  in  use 
at  the  very  commencement  of  the  Church,  since  a  Latin 
church  could  not  be  without  a  Latin  version,  and  the 
Roman  church,  which  has  always  held  the  chief  place 
among  the  churches,  and  was  most  tenacious  of  ancient 
traditions,  received  that  version  into  common  use." 
Now  let  the  reader  turn  to  Kitto's  Cyclopedia, '  a  Prot- 
estant work,  and  he  will  find  that  this  remarkable 
Latin  version  contained  all  the  deutero  books.  Then,  if 
he  asks  how  or  whence  did  they  get  thei-e,  the  only 
possible  answer  is,  from  the  Septuagint.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  when  the  Septuagint  passed  from  the  Hel- 
lenists to  the  Christians,  that  is,  in  the  very  origin  of 
the  Christian  religion,  it  included  the  deutero  Scriptures 

•  Prolog.  X.  i. 

'    Vulgate,  pp.   922,  923. 


8o  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

among  its  other  contents  ;  that  is,  the  Bible  used  b}'  Hel- 
lenists before  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era 
comprised  not  only  the  books  now  found  on  the  Hebrew 
canon,  but  those  others,  which  Jews  and  Protestants 
have  rejected  as  apocryphal,  but  which  the  Church 
from  the  beginning  has  venerated  equally  with  the  rest 
as  the  word  of  God. 

The  remarks  of  Marsh  (d.  1839),  Anglican  Bishop  of 
Peterborough,  on  this  subject,  are  as  suggestive  as  they 
are  candid.  "  The  Council  of  Trent,"  says  he, '  "  declared 
no  other  books  to  be  sacred  and  canonical  than  such 
as  had  existed  from  the  earliest  ages  of  Christianit}', 
not  onlv  in  the  Latin  version  of  the  Old  Testament,  but 
even  in  the  ancient  Greek  version,  which  is  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Septuagint ....  In  the  manuscript  of  the 
Septuagint  there  is  the  same  intermixture  of  canonical 
and  apocryphal  (deutero)  books,  as  in  the  manuscripts  of 
the  Latin  version."  It  is  added  that  "  the  ecclesiastical 
(deutero)  books  were  generally  written  within  a  period 
which  could  not  have  extended  to  more  than  two  centu- 
ries before  the  birth  of  Christ.  In  the  choice  of  the  places 
which  were  assigned  them  by  the  Greek  Jews  resident 
in  Alexandria  and  other  parts  of  Egypt,  who  probably 
added  these  books  to  the  Septuagint,  according  as  the}- 
became  gradually  approved  of,  they  were  directed  part- 
ly by  the  subject,  partly  by  their  relations  to  other 
books,  and  partly  by  the  periods  in  which  the  recorded 
transactions  took  place."  After  this,  what  further  need 
is  there  of  testimony,  since  these  books  were  not  only 
added  to,  but  approved,  and  intermingled  among  the 
other  books  on  the  present  Jewish  canon  b}'  Jews  who 
were  admitted,  as  it  appears,  to  full  religious  fellowship 
at  Jerusalem. 

But  let  us  hear  the  evidence  of  one  more  Protestant 
witness,    a  comparatively    recent    writer,    Rev.  W.  W. 

'    Comparative  View.  p.  89, 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  8 1 

Wright,    iM.  A,    LL.  D.,   of    Trinity    College,    Dublin. 
"  These    books, "    says    Dr.    Wright,    referring    to   the 
(leutero,  in  an  article  contributed  to  Kitto's  Cyclopedia 
on  Deiiterocanonical,  "  seem  to  have  been  included  in  the 
copies  of   the  Septuagint,   which   was  generally    made 
use  of  by  the  sacred  writers  of  the  New  Testament.     It 
does  not  appear  whether  the  apostles  gave  any  cautions 
against  the  reading  of  these  books,  and  it  has  even  been 
supposed  that  they  have  referred  to  them."    Then,  alter 
giving   a    list   of  some    twenty    passages    found    in  the 
deutero  books,  and   to  which  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament   are    "  supposed  "    to  have   "  referred,"    Dr. 
Wright  adds:  "  The  only  copies  of  the  Scriptures  in  ex- 
istence for  the  first  three  hundred   years  after  Christ, 
either  among  the  Jews  or  Christians  of  Greece,  Italy,  or 
Africa,  contained  these  books  without  any  mark  of  dis- 
tinction that  we  know  of." 

Two  points,  therefore,  are  settled,  so  far  as  Protestant 
testimony  can  do   it.     First,  the  Septuagint  containing 
the  deutero  books  was  the  copy  of  the  sacred  Scriptures 
used    publicly  and    privately  by  the   Hellenistic   Jews 
everywhere,  for  nearly  three  centuries  before  the  time 
of  Christ,  and,  indeed,  for  nearly  two  centuries  after  that. 
Second,  while  doing  so,  those  Jews  were  in  communion 
with   the   Jewish    authorities   in   Jerusalem,    and    were 
there  treated  not  only  as  members  of  the  same  race,  but 
as  genuine  professors  of  the  same  religion.     It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say,  that  the  first  point  is  not  only  admitted 
but  insisted  on  by  every  Catholic  writer  who  has  ever 
discussed  the  subject  of  the  canon.     Indeed,  it  would  be 
easy  to  show   that   these  same    Catholic   writers   who 
argue  that  there  was  up  till  the  time  of  Christ  but  one 
canon,    the   Palestinian,    contend    that    the    Septuagint 
contained  the  deutero  books,  and  that  these,  though  not 
before    that    canonized,  were   highly  venerated  by  the 
Jews.     In  proof  of  this  it  is  quite  sufficient  to  appeal  to 


82  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

Hiiet  '  and  Ubaldi,'^  both  of  whom  contend  that  until 
the  time  of  Christ  the  only  canon  was  the  Palestinian. 
The  second  point  is  not  onl}-  conceded,  but  insisted  on  by 
Catholic  critics.  Jahn  maintains  "that  the  Jews,  wher- 
ever found  throughout  the  world,  constituted  one  soci- 
ety, haying-  as  a  bond  of  union  the  temple  of  Jerusalem, 
to  which  they  sent  every  year  half  a  shekel,  and  to 
which  on  feast  days  all  came  who  could,  while  those 
who  could  not,  sent  gifts  and  sacrifices  to  be  offered 
there.  Even  this  bond  of  union  was  maintained  by  the 
Egyptian  Jews,  who  had  a  temple  at  Leontopolis,  and 
who,  neyertheless,  visited  not  rarely  the  Temple  at 
Jerusalem."'  Vincenzi*  declares,  that  "the  Egyptian 
Jews,  though  a  temple  was  erected  at  Leontopolis,  did 
not  fail  to  observe  the  duties  of  their  religion,  or  to  live 
in  concord  with  their  Palestinian  brethren ; "  and  argues 
from  the  prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus,  the  epistle  Purim 
in  the  Book  of  Esther,  the  visit  of  the  seventy-two 
Elders  of  Judea  to  Egypt  to  translate  the  Hebrew 
Scripture  for  Ptolemy,  and  from  II.  Mach.  i.,  that  "  the 
Alexandrian  Jews  maintained  with  those  of  Jerusalem 
fellowship  and  unity  in  the  observance  of  the  laws." 
Ubaldi^  points  to  Esther  xi.  i,  etc.,  and  II.  Mach.  i.,  as 
proof  that  "  perfect  communion,  mutual  prayers,  com- 
munication of  feasts,  delivery  of  sacred  books,  prevailed 
between  the  two  classes  of  Jews,"  those  of  Palestine 
and  those  of  Alexandria.  Even  Huet,  '  whose  theory 
has  found  such  a  learned  advocate  in  Ubaldi,  while  cit- 
ing the  words  contained  in  II.  Mach.  ii.,  recognizes 
the  fact,  that  "  the  Hellenists,  to  whom  these  words 
were  written,   consulted  the   Synagogue  of  Jerusalem 

*  Demonst.  Evang.^  p.  344.  '  Introd.  in  S.  Script.,  vol.  ii.,  187. 

3  Migne,  Saipt.  Cursui,  Toni.  ii.,  col.  1009,  1014. 
■*  Sessio  Quarta  Cone.  Trie/.,  Pars,  ii.,  pp.  25,  26. 

5  Introd.  in  S   Scrip.,  vol.  ii.,  192. 

6  Demonst.  Evung.,  p.  344. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  83 

about  divine  things,  and  followed  its  decrees."  In  fact, 
those  who  with  Huet  believe  that  the  Jews,  whether 
Palestinian  or  Hellenistic,  never  had  any  canon  but  the 
Palestinian,  insist  on  the  close  communion  between  the 
two  classes  of  Jews  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  their 
theory,  alleging  that,  as  it  is  certain  that  there  was  a 
Palestinian  canon  identical  with  the  existing  Hebrew 
canon,  according  to  Josephus  and  the  tradition  of  the 
Jews,  the  Hellenists,  as  being  in  communion  with  the 
central  authority  at  Jerusalem,  could  not  have  had  a  dif- 
ferent one  ;  and  therefore,  that  the  existence  of  an 
Alexandrian  canon,  different  from  the  one  followed  in 
Judea,  is  contradicted  by  well  established  facts.  Here 
it  may  be  observed,  by  the  way,  that  in  the  present 
enquiry  facts  are  exceedingly  rare,  and  those  just  men 
tioned,  when  punctured,  would  probably  collapse  into 
conjectures.  But  Comely  '  meets  this  argument  of  the 
Huet  School  in  the  following  manner:  The  communion 
admitted  to  exist  between  the  Palestinians  and  Helle- 
nists did  not  prevent  the  latter,  especially  such  of  them 
as  lived  in  Egypt,  from  performing  the  most  solemn 
acts  of  religion  in  the  temple  of  Leontopolis,  although 
to  do  so  was  positively  forbidden  by  the  Law  of  Moses. ' 
Then,  why  might  they  not,  without  rupturing  the 
religious  bond  which  connected  them  with  Jerusalem, 
adopt  a  few  books  in  addition  to  those  revered  as  sacred 
by  their  Palestinian  brothers ;  for,  in  doing  so  they 
violated  no  part  of  the  Mosaic  Law.  This  was  clear; 
but  it  was  not  so  clear  that  the  erection  of  a  temple  at 
Leontopolis  was  not  an  infraction  of  that  Law.  In  fact, 
as  will  be  seen  hereafter,'  Rabbins  writing,  however,  long- 
after  the  final  dispersion  of  the  Jews,  have  declared  that 
priests  who  had  ofihciated  in  the  temple  of  Onias  were 
not  permitted  to  offer  in  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem. 

1   Introd.  in  S.  Scrip.,  vol.  i.,  p.  53. 

'■2  Deut.   xii.  3  p    105. 


84  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

At  all  events,  if  the  unanimous  verdict  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant  critics  be  Avorth  anything,  it  is  certain  that 
the  Hellenists  used  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures  containing- 
the  deutero  books,  and  were  nevertheless  considered 
entitled  to  all  the  privileges  accorded  to  the  most 
orthodox  Jews.  In  other  words,  the}'  were  admitted  to 
full  spiritual  fellowship  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
at  Jerusalem,  were  there  allowed  to  take  part  in  the 
public  worship  at  the  Temple,  to  present  their  offerings, 
to  perform  their  sacrifices,  to  frequent  their  own  syna- 
gogue, and  there  listen  to  the  reading  of  the  Alexandrian 
version  with  a  degree  of  license  as  ample  as  that  under 
which  the  native  Jews  assembled  to  hear  the  Scriptures 
read  in  their  mother  tongue.  And  all  this,  while  both  at 
Jesusalem  and  elsewhere  these  Hellenists  learned  and 
read  privately  and  publicly  the  Scriptures,  not  in  He- 
brew or  Aramaic,  but  in  Greek,  and  that  in  a  translation 
whose  contents  had  been  so  arranged  as  to  ignore  any 
distinction  between  the  writings  of  Solomon  and  the  com- 
positions of  the  Son  of  Sirach,  and  obliterate  all  difference 
between  the  documents  that  contained  the  history  of  the 
kings  who  ruled  over  Juda  and  Israel,  and  those  which 
recorded  the  brave  deeds  of  the  Machabean  patriots. 
This,  too,  although  Ecclesiasticus,  Machabees,  and  some 
other  books  in  the  translation  were,  if  the  Rabbins  and 
their  Christian  pupils  are  to  be  believed,  ranked  by 
the  spiritual  authorities  at  Jerusalem,  among  those  pro- 
fane productions  which  never  had  been,  and  never  could 
be  honored  by  a  place  in  that  sacred  roll  which  con- 
stituted their  canon  of  Scripture.  All  this,  in  view  of 
the  rigid  principles  that  regulated  the  conduct  of  the 
Palestinian  Jews,  in  whatever  concerned  religious  belief 
and  pi-actice,  is  not  only  marvellous  but  inexplicable  ; 
unless  it  be  supposed  that  the  Jews  at  that  time  had  no 
fixed  canon,  or  if  they  had,  that  the  deutero  books  were 
then  included  in  it. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  85 

Moreover,  it  is  well  known  that,  besides  the  canon- 
ical books,  the  Jews  possessed  many  others,  to  some  of 
which  allusion  is  made  in  the  Old  Testament ;  of  these 
others  all— a  few  excepted — have  perished.  It  cannot 
be  doubted,  that  among  all  those  books  were  writings 
equal  in  authority  to  those  that  survived,  and  writings, 
too,  on  whose  character  it  would  be  hard  to  pass  judg- 
ment, and  writings,  besides,  which,  when  examined, 
would  have  at  once  betrayed  their  human  origin.  But 
are  w^e  to  believe  that  there  was  no  means  provided  for 
separating  the  tares  and  the  chaff  from  the  good  grain 
in  this  undigested  mass  of  literature;  that  all  who  were 
able  to  read  could  satisfy  their  thirst  for  know- ledge,  by 
possessing  such  portions  of  the  whole  collection  as 
choice  or  accident  placed  in  their  hands,  without  any 
one  to  guide  them  in  making  a  selection;  and  that, 
when  the  only  sanction  for  insisting  on  the  purity  of 
public  and  private  morals,  for  duly  performing  the  sac- 
red functions  of  religion,  and  for  maintaining  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  theocracy,  was  derived 
from  written  records,  and  that  sanction  itself  w^as  uni- 
versally recognized  as  divine,  there  was  no  way  by 
W'hich  it  could  be  decided,  which  of  these  records 
themselves  were  divine  and  which  human  ?  To  ask 
such  a  question  is  to  expose  its  absurdity  ;  especially 
since  the  Jews,  as  will  be  showm,  had  always  at  hand, 
from  the  time  of  Moses  until  the  coming  of  Christ,  a 
tribunal  divinely  constituted  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
ciding all  doubts  and  disputes  referring  to  religious 
belief  or  practice,  and,  of  course,  for  the  further  pur- 
pose of  distinguishing  between  scripture  and  scripture  ; 
so  that  all  who  cared,  might,  whenever  a  book  appeared, 
know  whether  it  had  God  or  man  for  its  author. 

With  these  considerations  before  us,  it  would,  therefore, 
seem  unreasonable  to  doubt,  that  from  the  time  of  Moses 
until  the  coming  of  Christ  the  Jews  had  a  canon  ;  that 


86  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

that  canon,  as  soon  as  the  Alexandrian  version  was  gen- 
erally adopted  by  the  Hellenists,  contained  the  deutero 
books  ;  and  that  these  books  remained  therein  with  the 
common  consent  and  approval  of  all  Jews,  who,  however, 
compelled  by  stress  of  controversy,  decided,  probably 
soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  on 
rejecting  them  as  uncanonical.*  For  this  view  con- 
siderable evidence  has  been  produced  already,  and  more 
will  be  submitted  as  the  discussion  proceeds. 

'  In  order  to  meet  the  arguments  by  which  it  was  proved  that  Christ  was 
the  Messiah,  the  Rabbins  were  forced  to  eliminate  from  their  canon  such  of  the 
deutero  books  as  the  Christians  cited  in  behalf  of  that  dogma;  for  example, 
the  Book  of  Wisdom.  This,  however,  the  Rabbins  could  not  consistently  do, 
without  also  excluding  the  other  deutero  books  which,  like  "Wisdom,"  were 
either  not  written  in  Hebrew,  or  even  not  written  until  long  after  inspiration 
had  ceased— the  age  of  Esdras — as  they  arbitrarily  declared.  Grant  them  all 
this,  and  it  at  least  follows,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment cannot  have  had  God  for  its  author.  The  Reformers  accepted  the  rab- 
binical premises  ;  but  as  their  position  compelled  them  to  ignore  every  rule  of 
logic,  they,  with  characteristic  inconsistency,  rejected  the  conclusion  to  which 
these  premises  inevitably  lead, 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  JEWISH  CANON,  THE  WORK  OF  THE  JEWISH 
HIGH  PRIEST, 

To  return  to  Esdras  :  if  the  question  concerning  the 
origin  of  the  Old  Testament  canon  be  decided,  as  it 
ought  to  be,  by  the  Scriptures  themselves  so  far  as  that 
is  possible,  and  not  by  a  rabbinical  tradition  so  recent 
as  compared  with  its  subject,  and  so  fabulous  in  many 
of  its  details  as  to  be  absolutely  incredible,  the  honor 
of  having  been  the  first  and  the  only  one  to  draw  up  a 
canon  does  not  belong  to  him.  For  it  was  Moses  who 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  canon,  by  directing  that  the 
Tables  of  the  Law  '  should  be  deposited  in,  and  Deuteron- 
omy ^  beside,  the  ark  of  the  covenant.  Neither  can  the 
credit  of  having  continued  or  completed  the  canon  be 
claimed  for  Esdras.  For  while,  according  to  the  Script- 
ure, Jeremias  and  Nehemias  had  something  to  do  in 
its  extension,  Judas  the  Essene  is  entitled  to  the  glory 
of  having  completed  it.  So,  at  least,  it  is  said  (as  already 
remarked)  by  many  interpreters.  Thus,  while  all  that 
the  Scriptures  have  to  say  about  the  labors  of  Esdras  on 
their  contents  is  that "  the  children  of  Israel ....  spoke  to 
Esdras  the  Scribe  to  bring  the  Book  o  the  Law  of  Mo- 
ses," and  he  did  so  ;  "  and  he  read  it  plainlv  in  the  street 
that  was  before  the  water  gate,  from  the  morning  until 
mid-day  :  "  '  these  same  Scriptures  speak  of  the  "  de- 
scriptions of  Jeremias  the  prophet; "  how  "  he  gave 
charge  to  them  that  were  carried  away  into  captivity  ;  " 

'  Ex.  XXV.  l6.  ^  Deut.  xxxi.  26.  ^  Neh.  viii.  I,  2,  3. 


88  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

how  "  he  gave  them  the  law,  that  the}-  should  not  forget 
the  commandments  of  the  Lord,  and  that  they  should  not 
err  in  their  minds  ....  and  with  other  such  like  speeches 
exhorted  them  that  they  would  not  remove  the  law 
from  their  heart.  It  was  also  contained  in  the  same 
writing  how  the  Prophet,"  etc'  These  same  Scriptures 
also  make  mention  of  ''  the  memoires  and  commentaries 
of  Nehemias,  and  how  he  made  a  library,  and  gathered 
together  out  of  the  countries  the  books  both  of  the 
Prophets,  and  of  David,  and  the  epistles  of  the  Kings, 
and  concerning  the  holv  gifts."  ^  This  looks  like  the 
work  which  the  author  of  a  canon  would  have  to  do. 
And  finally,  these  same  Scriptures  declare,  that  "  Judas 
also  gathered  together  all  such  things  as  were  lost  by 
the  war."  '  These  things  were  evidently  such  records 
as  Nehemias  in  the  preceding  verse  is  said  to  have  cor- 
rected. Now,  is  it  not  more  reasonable  (it  may  be,  indeed, 
it  has  been  said)  to  conclude  on  such  scriptural  testimo- 
n}',  that  Moses  laid  the  foundation  of  a  canon,  that  it  was 
continued  b}^  Jeremias  and  Nehemias,  and  at  last  brought 
to  completion  by  Judas  the  Essene,  "  a  prophet  who 
never  missed  the  truth  in  his  predictions,"  ^  than  to 
argue,  on  the  strength  of  a  rabbinical  legend  unrecorded 
and  unknown  for  several  centuries  after  the  supposed 
fact  with  which  it  deals  must  have  occurred,  that  the 
formation  of  the  canon  is  either  partially  or  principally 
the  work  of  Esdras?  This  question  would  elicit  un- 
doubtedly an  afifirmative  answer  from  many  modern  crit- 
ics. But  there  is  among  them  quite  a  large  number  still, 
whose  studies  as  well  as  respect  for  a  theory,  venerable 
at  least  for  its  antiquity,  would  induce  them  to  protest 
against  even  the  suspicion  that  suggests  such  a  ques- 
tion. Moreover,  it  must  be  admitted,  that,  while  the 
silence  of  the  Scripture,  as  well  as  the  very  questionable 

'  II.  Mach.  ii.  1,-4.  '  Ibid.  13. 

2  Ibid.  14.  *  Josephus,  Aniiq.,  B.  xiii.,  c.  xi.,  %  2. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  89 

character  of  the  Jewish  tradition,  must  forever  render  it 
exceedingly  doubtful  whether  Esdras  is  entitled  to  any 
credit  as  the  principal  author  of  the  canon,  the  opinion 
that  Jeremias,  or  Nehemias,  or  Judas  the  Essene  contrib- 
uted to  make  the  Jewish  canon  what  it  is,  deserves 
hardly  any  consideration,  as  it  rests  on  nothing  better 
than  a  forced  construction  put  upon  a  few  texts  of 
Scripture. 

In  view,  however,  of  the  fact,  that  the  law  of  Moses 
conferred  on  the  High  Priest  plenary  authority  to 
render  a  definitive  judgment  in  all  controversies  that 
were  brought  before  him,  it  is  quite  unnecessar}-,  nay, 
unscriptural,  to  look  beyond  the  latter  venerable  person- 
age for  the  author  of  the  canon,  whatever  may  be  the 
books  of  which  it  is  composed.  In  fact,  to  do  so  is  to 
disregard  the  plain  sense  of  the  Scripture,  and  engage 
in  an  inquir}-  which  the  experience  of  centuries  shows 
must  be  conducted  on  purely  conjectural  grounds,  and 
can  therefore  lead  to  no  certain  nor  even  probable 
result.  That  law  ordained,  that,  when  among  the 
children  of  Israel  there  should  arise  "a  hard  and  doubt- 
ful matter  in  judgment  between  blood  and  blood,  cause 
and  cause,  lepros)'  and  leprosy,"  and  when  it  should 
happen  "  that  the  words  of  the  judges  within  thv  gates 
do  vary,"  then  the  litigants  were  to  "go  up  to  the  place 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  choose.  And  ....  come 
to  the  priests  of  the  Levitical  race,  and  to  the  judge 
that  shall  be  at  that  time  ;  and  shall  ask  of  them,  and 
they  shall  show  the  truth  of  the  judgment."  And  the 
litigants  were  further  directed  to  "  do  whatsoever  they 
shall  say  that  preside  in  the  place  which  the  Lord 
shall  choose,  and  what  they  shall  teach.  .  .  According  to 
his  law;"  and  it  was  further  ordered  that  all  should 
"  follow  their  sentence,  "  and  "  neither  ....  decline  to 
the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left  hand."  Finally,  it  was  de- 
creed that  whosoever  "  will  be  proud,  and    refuse   to 


QO  TJic  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

obey  the  commandment  of  the  priest  who  ministereth 
at  that  time  to  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  the  decree  of  the 
iudge,  that  man  shall  die,  "  and  all  are  commanded  thus 
to  "  take  away  the  evil  from  Israel."  ' 

The  powers  conferred  on  the  High  Priest  by  this  or- 
dinance  are  so  ample,  that,  no  matter  how  it  may  be 
interpreted,  it  seems  impossible,  so  long  as  the  plain 
obvious  sense  of  the  words  in  which  it  is  couched  is  at- 
tended to,  to  reach  any  other  conclusion,  than  that  the 
High  Priest  was  infallible  in  his  official  decisions.  In- 
deed, it  would  be  easy  to  prove  this  ;  and  easy,  too,  to 
show  that  all  the  texts  cited  to  the  contrary  by  those 
critics  who  claim  infallibility  each  for  himself,  but  will 
not  allow  it  even  in  God's  anointed  Supreme  Pontiff,  go 
to  demonstrate,  not  that  the  Jewish  High  Priest  was  not 
infallible,  but  that  he  was  not  impeccable.  ^  The  ques- 
tion, however,  is  one  which  can  only  be  alluded  to  here 
incidentally,  as  it  is  outside  the  range  of  the  present  dis- 
cussion. For  the  purpose  of  that  discussion  it  is  enough 
to  know,  that  God  through  his  servant  Moses  directed 
that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  High  Priest  should  be  su- 
preme, and  his  decision  final  in  all  matters  pertaining  to 
religion.  And  what  matters  pertaining  to  the  Jewish 
religion  could  be  of  more  importance  to  all  than  the 
general  estimate  to  be  placed  on  those  writings  which 
either  actually  contained,  or  falsely  professed  to  contain, 
the  sanctions  and  credentials  on  which  that  religion  based 
its  claims  to  universal  respect  and  obedience  ?  That  the 
Jews  believed  there  were  among  them  two  classes  of 
books,  divine  and  human,  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  at 
last,  but  too  late  for  their  decision  to  be  of  any  account, 
they  approved  some  books  and  condemned  others.  Who, 
throughout  their  entire  history,  from  the  commence- 
ment of  their  literature  until  the  close  of  their  national 
existence,  was  to  draw  the  line  of  distinction  between 

'  Deut.  xvii.  8-12.  -  Becanus,  AnaLgy  of  the  Scrip.,  ch.   xi. 


The  Ca-non  of  the  Old  Tcshniieii/.  91 

the  two  classes  of  compositions  ?  For  that  Hue  of  distinc- 
tion had  to  be  drawn  on  account  of  the  reasons  alleged 
above. '  Not  the  scribes,  as  there  is  nothing  said  about 
them  before  the  time  of  David.  No,  nor  the  prophets. 
For,  although  references  to  them  arc  quite  frequent  in 
all  parts  of  the  Scripture,  there  is  nothing  of  a  judicial 
nature  in  their  office.  Besides,  in  the  fundamental  law, 
or  divine  constitution,  under  which  the  Jews  lived, 
there  is  not  a  single  ordinance  intimating  in  any  way 
that  the  right  to  decide  what  was  or  was  not  divine 
Scripture  belonged  to  scribe  or  prophet.  There  is  only 
one  man  to  whom,  according  to  that  constitution,  such 
prerogative  belonged,  as  inherent  in  his  office,  and  that 
man  was  the  High  Priest  for  the  time  being. 

That  authority  to  place,  from  time  to  time,  on  the  same 
list  with  the  books  composing  the  Pentateuch  such 
other  compositions  as  he  might  consider  written  under 
similar  influence,  was  given  to  the  High  Priest,  there  can 
therefore  be  no  doubt ;  as  is  evident,  not  only  from  the 
ordinance  of  Moses  cited  above,  but  from  the  preceding 
as  well  as  the  following  considerations. 

The  discovery  made  by  Helcias,  ■  when  he  found  in 
the  Temple  what  was  probably  the  very  Law  as  written 
by  Moses,  or  at  least  what  was  then  apparently  a  rare 
copy  of  it,  may  seem  altogether  irrelevant  in  the  present 
discussion.  But  let  the  reader  have  the  patience  to  ex- 
amine the  account  as  a  critic,  then  say  what  he  thinks. 
Here  are  the  facts.  Helcias  was  High  Priest.  His 
profound  veneration  for  the  volume  which,  consciously 
or  otherwise,  he  had  rescued  from  the  secure  obscurity 
to  which,  in  order  to  preserve  it  from  profanation,  him- 
self or  a  predecessor  had  consigned  it,  is  quite  apparent. 
'He  recognizes  it  at  once,  long  reading  and  careful  study 
of  its  contents  having,  of  course,  enabled  him  to  identify 
it  without  any  difficulty.     But  perhaps  the  volume  was 

J   .Supra  p.  85.  •      2  IV.  Kings  xxii.  8;   II.  Paral.  xxxiv.  14. 


92  Tlie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

gotten  up  for  the  occasion  ?      An  infidel  might  say  so. 
But  Saphan  the  Scribe,  and  Josias  the  King,  and  Ahi- 
cam,  and  Achabor,  and  Asaia,  and  Holda  the  Prophetess, 
and  all  the  ancients  of  Juda  and  Jerusalem,  and  all  the 
priests  and  prophets,  (including,  very  likely,  Sophonias 
and  even  Jeremias,)  and  all  the  people  both  great  and 
little,  as  the  Scripture  asserts,  thought  otherwise,  and 
unhesitatingly  received  the  volume  "as  "  the  Book  of  the 
Law  of  the  Lord  by  the  hand  of   Moses."     But  why? 
Because  the  High  Priest  had  so  declared  ;  and  because 
they  knew  that  Moses  had  appointed  the  High  Priest 
to  pronounce  a  definitive  judgment  between  Scripture 
and  Scripture,  as  well  as  between  leprosy  and  leprosy, 
and  that  death  was  the  penalt}'  of  disobeying  that  judg- 
ment.     Although  some  commentators  are  of  a  different 
opinion,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  the  book  could 
have  been  even  a  copy  of  the  original,  and  not  the  very 
autograph  of  Moses   himself.     Josias,  the  King,  is  sur- 
prised, in  fact  terrified,  while  hearing  it  read.    Had  he 
never  before  heard  the  fearful  judgments  pronounced  by 
Closes  against  those,  who  transgressed  the  Law  of  the 
Lord  ?    Had  he  already  been  engaged  six  '  j^ears  in  a  con- 
stant effort  to  extirpate  idolatry  in  his  kingdom  and  even 
beyond  its  limits,  without  having  read  or  heard  read  the 
onh^  written  law  which  justified  his  proceedings?      No, 
that  cannot  be  supposed.      The  monarch  was  troubled 
and  alarmed,  not  by  what  was  read,  but  by  the  belief  that 
he  was  listening  to  the  appalling  denunciations  of  crime 
not  only  in  the  very  words  whiqh  he  had  often  read  and 
heard  before,  but  in  the  very  words  which  Moses  had 
traced  with  his  own  pen,  and  in  the  very  volume  in  which 
Moses  had  written  them,  some  eight  hundred  years  be- 
fore.     An  aged  volume,  undoubtedly,  but  only  about 
half  as  old  as  some  volumes  (the  Vatican  copy  of  the 
Septuagint,   for  example)  preserved  among  Christians, 

'  II.  Paral.  xxxiv.  3,  8. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  93- 

whose  care  of  the  Scriptures  is  certainly  not  greater  than 
that  taken  of  them  by  the  Jews.  Whether  the  book 
which  excited  the  consternation  of  Josias  was  the  orig- 
inal or  a  copy,  is,  however,  a  matter  of  no  consequence. 
It  was  duly  authenticated  as  genuine,  and  practically 
declared  the  essential  germ,  of  which  the  future  canon 
was  to  be  the  natural  outgrowth.  But  authenticated 
and  declared  by  whom?  By  the  High  Priest,  whose 
judgment  in  the  case  was  accepted  as  final,  not  only  by 
all  scribes,  prophets,  and  Jews  then  and  subsequently, 
but  by  Christians  in  every  age.  It  is  useless  to  argue 
with  any  one  who  cannot  find  in  the  inspired  account 
of  this  remarkable  affair  prima  facie  evidence,  that  it 
was  the  prerogative  of  the  High  Priest  to  decide, 
whether,  as  books  appeared,  they  were  canonical  or 
apocryphal,  divine  or  human. 

No  doubt,  the  plenary  powers  with  which  the  High 
Priest  was  invested  by  Moses,  in  all  matters  pertaining 
to  religion,  were  too  often  ignored  and  practically  dis- 
regarded by  the  Jews  and  their  rulers.  But  so,  too, 
occasionally  were  the  plainest  and  gravest  duties  pre- 
scribed by  the  law.  Yet,  as  no  one  concludes  that  a 
duty  is  no  longer  binding  because  it  is  sometimes  vio- 
lated, so  it  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  powers  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  High  Priest— rather  claimed  for  him 
in  the  present  discussion  for  reasons  already  assigned — 
were  either  not  given,  or  if  given  had  ceased ;  because, 
so  far  as  known,  they  were  exercised  but  rarely,  or 
because  many  instances  might  be  cited  in  which  their 
enforcement  in  other  matters  besides  the  Scripture — a 
subject  in  the  treatment  of  which  the  Jewish  Pontiff 
seems  to  have  long  enjoyed  the  utmost  liberty — was  not 
admitted  or  was  violently  suspended  by  the  disturbed 
state  of  the  theocracy,  or  by  the  arbitrar}^  Avill  of  the 
petty  despots  who  usurped  supreme  power  in  Church  as 
well  as  State.     Yet  even  these  despots  hardlv  ever  ap- 


94  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

peared  disposed  to  interfere  in  the  exercise  of  the  power 
inherent  in  the  Jewish  Pontificate,  unless  when  such 
exercise  seemed  likely  to  frustrate  their  own  ambitious 
designs;  while  those  pious  princes  who  sought  the  will 
of  God  and  the  happiness  of  their  subjects,  fostered 
rather  than  curbed  the  powers  placed  in  the  custody 
of  the  high  Priest.  Of  this  we  have  an  example  in  the 
history  of  Josaphat,  King  of  Juda,  who  preceded  Josias 
b)'  about  two  hundred  years.  This  virtuous  prince, 
anxious  to  correct  evils  resulting  from  the  policy  of  his 
wicked  predecessors,  undertook  a  reformation  in  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  his  kingdom,  his  inten- 
tion being  to  re-organize  both  as  far  as  possible  accord- 
insf  to  the  constitution  which  Moses  had  traced. 
Among  the  arrangements  which  he  introduced,  or 
rather  the  Mosaic  institutions  which  he  restored,  was 
the  Pontificate  as  created  and  outlined  in  Deuteronom}'. 
For,  addressing  the  priestly  class,  he  says  :  "And  Amari- 
as  the  Priest,  your  High  Priest,  shall  be  chief  in  the 
things  which  regard  God."  '  Now,  say,  is  there  any- 
thing which  regards  God  more  than  controversies  about 
the  canon  of  Scripture,  that  is,  disputes  about  what  God 
has  or  has  not  written?  And,  in  fact,  it  seems  that  it 
was  principally  religious  controversies  of  all  kinds,  in- 
cluding, of  course,  such  as  referred  to  the  Scriptures, 
with  which  the  priests  were  occupied.  And  therefore 
Ezechiel,  treating  of  their  rights  and  duties,  says:  "  When 
there  shall  be  controversy,  they  shall  stand  in  my  judg- 
ment, and  shall  judge." "  And  of  these  priests,  the  High 
Priest  was  chief.  As  such  he  was  supreme  judge,  the 
others  ranking  as  assessors  or  counsellors.  To  his  ac- 
tion as  supreme  judge,  or  president  in  the  last  court  of 
appeal,  no  opposition  was  probably  offered  by  the  civil 
power,  unless  when  that  action  was  likel)^  to  thwart  the 
will  of  the  temporal  ruler.     And  as  questions  regarding 

'  II.  Paral.  xix.  Ii.  ■  Ez.  xliv.  24. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  95 

the  canonicity  of  writings,  whatever  might  be  the  deci- 
sion, were  not  likely  to  excite  the  fears  or  interfere  with 
the  projects  of  that  ruler,  the  High  Priest,  in  taking  cog- 
nizance of  such  cases,  ^vas,  it  may  be  supposed,  free  to 
give  judgment  according  to  his  own  honest  convictions, 
while,  when  the  temporal  sovereignty  and  spiritual  su- 
premacy were,  as  often  happened  after  the  captivity, 
united  in  him,  he  enjoyed  a  degree  of  liberty  which,  even 
apart  from  the  divine  sanction,  on  which,  according  to 
popular  belief,  his  authority  was  based,  must  have  gone 
far  in  securing  for  his  decisions  universal  confidence  and 
respect.  The  view  here  advocated  is  further  confirmed 
by  Josephus,  who,  while  sketching  the  constitution 
drawn  up  by  Moses,  says  that  there  were  to  "  be  seven 
men  to  judge  in  every  city,"  each  judge  being  allotted 
"  two  ministers  ....  out  of  the  tribe  of  Levi."  ....  But 
if  these  judges  be  unable  to  give  a  just«sentence  ....  let 
them-  send  the  cause  undetermined  to  the  holy  city, 
and  let  the  High  Priest  and  the  Prophet  and  the  Sanhe- 
drim, after  meeting  together,  determine  as  it  shall  seem 
good  to  thern."  '  This  was  evidently  a  court  in  which 
the  High  Priest  acted  as  supreme  judge.  Elsewhere  ^ 
Josephus,  discussing  the  same  subject,  states,  that  the 
constitution  under  which  the  Jews  lived  "  permits  the 
priests  in  general  to  be  the  administrators  of  the  princi- 
pal affairs,  and  withal  intrusts  the  government  over  the 
other  priests  to  the  chief  priest.  .  .  .  These  men  had  the 
main  care  of  the  law  and  of  the  other  parts  of  the  peo- 
ple's conduct  committed  to  them  ;  for  they  were  the 
priests  who  were  ordained  to  be  the  inspectors  of  all,  and 
the  judges  of  doubtful  cases."  And  "  His  [God's]  priests 
are  to  be  continually  about  His  worship,  over  whom  he 
that  is  the  first  by  birth  is  to  be  their  ruler  perpetually. 
His  business  must  be  to  offer  sacrifices  to  God,  together 
with  those  priests  who  are  joined  with  him,  to  see  that  the 

•  Antiq.,  I'.,  iv.,  c.  8,    14.  "   B.  II.  Contra  Apion  ,   ^  22. 


96  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

laws  be  observed,  to  determine  controversies."  '  This 
is  clear,  to  the  point,  and  decisive.  It  is,  therefore,  evi- 
dent, that  the  right  to  determine  what  books  were 
divine,  and  therefore  to  be  placed  on  the  canon,  belonged 
to  the  High  Priest;  and  that,  when  in  this  or  any  other 
question,  concerning  religious  belief  or  practice  espec- 
ially, controversies  arose  that  could  not  be  otherwise 
settled,  they  were  finally  and  definitively  decided  by  a 
judicial  sentence,  pronounced  or  approved  by  him. 
Thus  it  seems  that  God  had  appointed  the  same  means 
for  establishing  a  canon  of  Scripture  and  securing  unity 
of  faith  in  the  Old  Dispensation,  as  He  was  pleased  to 
sanction  for  the  same  purposes  in  the  New. 

Engaged,  as  we  are,  in  examining  what  were  the  re- 
lations of  the  High  Priest  to  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  and 
what  he  had  to  do  with  the  Old  Testament,  before  its 
custody  was  usurped  by  scribes  and  Rabbins,  it  seems 
quite  in  order  to  inquire,  whether  and  to  what  extent 
he  was  supposed  by  the  Jews  to  have  been  concerned  in 
the  production  of  the  LXX.  To  review  the  history  of 
that  celebrated  version,  as  it  has  been  told  by  Jewish 
writers,  Aristeas,  Aristobulus,  Philo,  Josephus,  and  after 
them  some  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  is  outside  the  scope 
of  the  present  work.  The  reader  is  supposed  to  know, 
that  modern  criticism  has  very  generally  rejected  many 
of  the  details  comprised  in  that  history,  though  it  has 
to  admit  the  main  facts,  around  which  these  details  have 
been  grouped — that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  trans- 
lated into  Greek  nearly  three  centuries  before  Christ, 
several  books  written  originally  in  Greek  having  been 
added  to  the  collection  then  or  soon  after,  and  that 
that  translation  was  the  work  of  several  Jews,  Palestinian 
or  Egyptian,  possibly  both. 

These  facts  are  all  fully  proved,  not  only  by  the  exist- 
ence of  the  translation  itself,  which,  ever  since  it  was 

'    [os.   Contra  Apion.,  B.  ii.  51  24. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  97 

made,  has  been  well  known  to  Jews,  to  Gentiles,  and 
from  the  day  of  Pentecost  to  Christians  wherever 
found,  but  especiall}^  by  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
the  Jewish  writers  named  above.  As,  however,  that 
testimony  is  about  to  be  appealed  to  for  another  pur- 
pose, it  seems  proper,  in  the  first  place,  to  state  what  is 
known  about  these  writers. 

Aristeas,  who,  according  to  his  own  statement,  lived 
in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  284-246  B.  C, 
and  was  an  officer  in  the  body  guard  of  that  monarch, 
is  the  first  writer  to  refer  to  the  translation  of  the  He- 
brew Scriptures  into  Greek,  an  undertaking  in  the  pro- 
motion of  which,  accordmg  to  his  own  account,  he 
himself  took  an  active  part.  That  account  is  contained 
in  a  letter  still  extant,  addressed  to  his  brother  Poly- 
crates.  In  that  letter,  the  only  document  claiming 
Aristeas  as  its  author,  the  writer  describes  in  consid- 
able  detail  the  various  steps  taken  by  command  of 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  as  advised  by  his  librarian  De- 
metrius Phalereus,  in  order  to  obtain  a  Greek  translation 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  for  the  library  alreadv  founded 
by  Ptolemy  at  Alexandria.  Throughout  his  letter  Aris- 
teas writes  as  if  he  were  a  pagan.  But  the  knowledge 
which  he  therein  displays  of  Jewish  laws,  customs, 
and  rites,  as  well  as  the  great  interest  he  took  in 
improving  the  condition  of  the  Jews  in  Egypt,  fully 
warrant  the  conjecture  that  he  himself  belonged  to  the 
same  race. 

Aristobulus,  the  first  after  Aristeas  to  mention  the 
Greek  translation,  was,  according  to  Eusebius,a  Jew  and 
a  peripatetic  philosopher.  He  is  also  said  to  have  been 
preceptor  to  Ptolemy  Philometer,  who  succeeded  to  the 
throne  of  Egypt  in  175  B.  C,  and  to  have  written  a 
commentary  on  the  five  Books  of  Moses.  This  com- 
mentary, which  he  dedicated  to  his  royal  pupil,  has 
long  since  perished,  and  all  that  remains  of  it  are  a  few 


^8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

brief  extracts  preserved  in  the  writings  of  Clement  of 
Alexandria  and  Eusebius.  From  the  extract  made  by 
Clement  '  it  appears  that,  accordmg  to  Aristobulus, 
while  referring  to  the  writing  of  the  LXX  as  suggested 
by  Demetrius  Phalereus,  a  Greek  translation  of  at  least 
a  part  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  had  been  made  before 
the  reign  of  Alexander  and  the  Persians.  The  extract 
preserved  by  Eusebius  ^  agrees  substantially  with  this. 
For,  as  represented  by  Eusebius,  Aristobulus  expressed 
himself  thus  :  "  For  even  before  Demetrius  Phalereus, 
and  even  long  before  the  reign  of  Alexander  and  the 
Persians,  all  the  Hebrew  writings  had  been  translated 
into  Greek."  It  is  thus  seen  that  the  writing  of  the 
Septuagint  is  mentioned  at  least  incidentall}-  b}-  Aristo- 
bulus, who  refers  it  to  the  period  designated  in  the  letter 
of  Aristeas.  The  former,  however,  beyond  this  meagre 
allusion  to  the  enterprise  which  secured  to  the  Jews  of 
Egypt  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures  in  their  vernacular, 
gives  not  a  single  detail  connected  with  the  afifair.  He 
was  a  prominent  Jewish  priest,  for  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  he  is  the  same  person  named  in  II.  Mach. 
i.  ID.,  and  one  may  well  believe,  that  in  his  writings, 
which,  with  the  exceptions  above  referred  to,  have  all 
been  lost,  he  gave  a  detailed  account  of  the  origin  of 
that  Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  so  long 
and  so  justly  prized  by  all  of  his  race  in  Egypt  and  other 
countries  where  Greek  was  understood. 

Philo  Judasus,  a  Platonic  philosopher,  already  noticed 
in  these  pages,  a  native  of  Alexandria,  who  flourished 
in  the  first  Christian  centur}^  and  a  Jewish  priest  ca- 
cording  to  St.  Jerome,  ^  in  his  account  of  the  Septua- 
gint, gives  ■*  some  particulars  omitted  in  that  of  Aris- 
teas. 

Josephus  in  his   statements  '   agrees  generally    with 

I  Strom.  V.  I.,  c.  xxii.  -^  Prepar.  Ev.,  1,  xiii.,  c.  xii.  ^  De  Jlris 

Illust.  c.  xi.  <  Dc  Vita  Mpysis  1.   ii.  ^  Antiq.  B.  xii.,  c.  ii. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  99 

what  is  told  us  by  Aristeas  about  the  origin  of  the  LX\. 
To  argue  in  support  of  the  proposition  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter,  regarding  the  relation  of  the  High  Priest 
to  the  canon  of  Scripture,  by  appealing  also  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  Jewish  writers  who  have  described  the 
origin  of  the  LXX,  will  probably  be  a  surprise  to  some 
critics.  No  credit,  it  will  be  said,  should  be  given  to 
what  these  writers  have  stated.  Have  they  not  been 
convicted  of  gross  exaggeration,  if  not  positive  falsehood  ? 
Besides,  if  all  their  statements  were  true,  not  one  word 
that  they  have  said  has  any  bearing  on  the  question  at 
issue.  Patience,  kind  reader.  Those  writers  were  all 
Jews,  one,  if  not  three,  certainly  belonging  to  the  priest- 
hood, and  he  a  member  of  the  strictest  Jewish  sect.  All 
they  have  told  us  has  been  told  with  the  feelings,  tra- 
ditions, and  convictions  of -Jews;  therefore,  though  the 
account  they  have  given  us  may  be  false  in  man}'  and 
even  important  particulars,  credit  must  be  given  them 
for  truthfully  stating  what  steps,  they  believed,  must 
have  been  taken,  in  initiating  and  carrying  through  the 
undertaking  which  the}^  describe.  Passing  by,  therefore, 
all  they  tell  us  about  what  Demetrius  Phalereus  did  in 
founding  a  library  at  Alexandria  under  the  auspices  of 
Ptolem}^  Philadelphus,  and  the  liberal  measures  adopted 
b}"  the  latter  for  improving  the  condition  of  the  Jews  in 
Egypt,  let  us  see  what  these  Jewish  writers  say  was 
done,  rather  what  they  believed  should  have  been  done, 
in  order  to  secure  competent  translators  and  a  correct 
copy  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures:  for  without  both  a 
reliable  translation  in  Greek,  such  as  Ptolemy  desired 
and  the  Egyptian  Jews  required,  could  not  be  expected. 
Translators  and  Hebrew  copies  of  the  Scriptures  might 
indeed  have  been  easily  obtained  among  the  Jews  who 
were  then  settled  in  Egypt.  For  it  cannot  be  supposed, 
that  there  were  not  in  Egypt  at  that  time  several  Jews 
familiar  with  Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  possessing  copies 
-of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.       Many  of  their  forefathers, 


lOO  TJie  Canon  of  t)ic  Old  Tcstauiciit. 

while  captives  in  Babylon,  are  known  to  have  understood 
Chaldee,  while  retaining  the  use  of  their  mother  tongue 
and  the  sacred  records  written  in  that  tongue.  And  in 
these  respects  the  condition  of  the  Jews  in  Babylon 
could  not  have  been  more  favorable  than  that  of  their 
descendants  under  Ptolem}-  Philadelphus  in  Egj'pt. 

But  evidently,  according  to  the  belief  of  those  Jews 
who  have  given  an  account  of  the  first  known  attempt 
at  translating  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  linguists  possess- 
ing the  necessar}'  qualifications  for  that  task,  and  an  au- 
thentic copy  of  these  Scriptures  for  their  use  while  en- 
gaged thereon,  were  to  be  obtained  only  at  Jerusalem, 
and  from  no  one  there  but  the  High  Priest.  For  this 
reason  the  reader  is  informed,  that  an  embassy,  in  which 
Aristeas  took  part,  was  commissioned  by  Ptolemy  to 
proceed  to  Jerusalem  and  there  obtain  from  the  High 
Priest  whatever  was  necessary  for  the  contemplated 
translation.  About  the  embassy  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
It  is  mentioned  and  described  by  Aristeas,  Philo,  and 
Josephus.  Even  Humphrey  Hody,  who  considers  the 
account  of  Aristeas  fabulous,  and,  had  the  Septuagint  per- 
ished before  his  own  time,  would  probably  have  denied 
that  such  a  version  ever  existed,  admits  '  that  the  Pal- 
estinian and  Hellenistic  Jews  all  believed  that  Ptol- 
emy Philadelphus  did  really  send  an  embassy  to  the 
High  Priest  for  a  copy  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and 
Jewish  scholars  to  translate  them  into  Greek.  Nor  is 
this  all ;  for,  as  Calmet-  has  observed,  Joseph  ben  Gorion, 
a  Jewish  writer  supposed  to  have  lived  in  the  ninth 
century  of  our  era,  states  that  the  High  Priest,  whose 
name  he  does  not  give,  sent  70  elders,  among  whom  was 
Eleazar,^  who  was  cruelly  put  to  death  under  Antiochus 
Epiphanes.  And  furthermore,  the  Samaritans,  always 
ready  to  claim  a  share  in  every  measure  that  redounded 

1  De  Bibl.  Text,  137,  220. 

"^  Dissert,  de  Vers.  Sept.  Intirp.  ^  I^-  ^^'ich-  vi. 


The  Canon  of  the  0/d  Tesfennent.  loi 

to  the  credit  of  the  Jews,  assert  in  their  chronicle,  or 
book  of  Josue  as  it  is  also  called,  that  Philadelphus  sent  for 
their  \\ig\\  Pi-iest  Aaron  with  the  most  eminent  men  ot 
their  community  ;  and  also  sent  for  Eleazar,  the  High 
Priest  of  the  Jews,  with  their  most  learned  doctors,  in 
order  that  each  party  might  make  a  Greek  translation 
of  the  divine  Law.  And  when  the  two  translations  were 
found  to  differ  in  some  places,  the  king  approved  the 
version  of  the  Samaritans,  whom  he  honored  with  valu- 
able gifts,  forbidding  at  the  same  time  the  Jews  even  to 
set  foot  on  the  sacred  mount  of  Garizim. ' 

The  Jewish  High  Priest,  according  to  our  three  Jew- 
ish witnesses,  being  informed  of  the  wishes  of  Ptolemy, 
and  no  doubt  of  the  urgent  necessity  felt  by  the  Egyp- 
tian Jews  for  the  Scriptures  in  the  only  language,  prob- 
ably, which  most  of  them  understood,  appointed  com- 
petent interpreters,  whom  he  despatched  to  Alexandria 
with  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures,  selected  by  himself,  which 
copy  the  interpreters  were  to  translate  into  Greek. 
When  the  interpreters  had  completed  their  task,  it  was 
found  to  have  been  so  faithfuUv  executed,  that  the  ver- 
sion received  the  unqualified  approval  of  Ptolemy,  was 
deposited  in  his  librar}',  and  long  served  as  a  standard 
for  those  copies  of  the  Scriptures  which  were  used  bv 
all  those  Jews  in  Egypt  and  elsewhere  who  understood 
Greek  alone,  or  who  preferred  to  study  their  inspired 
records  in  that  lanofuagre. 

The  interpreters,  having  been  royally  entertained  and 
rewarded  for  their  labors,  were  allowed  to  return  home, 
where,  of  course,  they  gave  a  report  of  all  they  had  done 
to  the  High  Priest,  who  may  be  supposed  to  have  hon- 
ored with  his  sanction  the  version  they  had  written  in 
Alexandria,  though  the  account  is  silent  on  this  point. 
That,  however,  is  immaterial.  The  work  done,  to  have 
been  done  right,  should,  as  the  Jewish  writers  believed, 
have  been  done  by  the  dulv  accredited  agents  of  the 

'   Calniet,  Disaerl   de  I'crs.  S,'pt.  Intnf. 


102  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

High  Priest.  And  as  it  was  done  by  them,  it  was  really 
his  work.  He  never  protested  against  or  condemned  it. 
So,  whatever  may  have  become  of  it  afterwards,  and 
whether  well  or  ill  founded  the  objections  which  in  the 
course  of  time  the  Jews  made  to  it,  the  LXX,  when  it  first 
came  before  the  public,  was,  it  may  be  said,  stamped  with 
the  Imprimatur  of  their  High  Priest  Eleazar,  from  whom 
Ptolemy  is  reported  to  have  obtained  the  interpreters 
as  well  as  the  Hebrew  copy  on  which  they  worked. 

Let  the  reader  bear  in  mind,  that  in  what  is  here  said 
there  is  no  intention  to  maintain  that  the  affair  was 
conducted  as  the  Jewish  writers  have  stated,  but  sim- 
ply to  insist  on  the  course  which  they  believed  must 
have  been  followed  to  bring  such  an  enterprise  to  a 
satisfactory  conclusion.  These  writers  were  evidently 
of  the  opinion  that,  when  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures 
was  needed,  the  High-Priest  was  the  only  person  who 
could  be  approached  on  the  subject,  as  it  belonged  to 
him  to  appoint  the  interpreters  and  select  a  cop)'  from 
which  a  version  was  to  be  made.  By  the  very  fact  that 
he  selected  a  particular  copy,  it  follows  that  he  authen- 
ticated that  copy,  and  that  that  copy  was  to  be  received 
as  genuine  by  the  interpreters  and  all  those  in  whose 
interests  the  Greek  version  was  written,  pagans  as  well 
as  Jews.  In  other  words,  the  Jewish  historians  of  the 
LXX  believed  that  that  version,  in  order  to  be  what 
was  expected,  a  veritable  equivalent  in  Greek  for  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  must  have  been  made  from  a  He- 
brew copy  containing  books  whose  canonicity  then  and 
there  was  officially  declared  by  the  very  act  of  the 
High  Priest,  or,  if  so  declared  already  b}'  one  of  his 
predecessors,  officially  recognized  by  that  act.  Now, 
as  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  these  historians 
fairly  represented  the  general  sentiment  of  the  Jews  at 
the  time  (indeed  we  have  seen  that  such  was  the  case), 
it    proves    that    the    Jews    then    commonly    believed 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  103 

that  it  was  the  exckisive  right  of  the  High  Priest,  in  ad- 
dition to  other  questions  which  came  within  his  jurisdic- 
tion, to  decide  as  supreme  judge  what  books  were  or 
were  not  to  be  received  as  canonical.  This  rieht  of 
course,  he  must  have  exercised,  not  only  after  maturely 
considering  the  question  himself,  but  after  consultinp" 
such  others  within  reach— priests,  prophets,  sanhedrim, 
(if  such  body  existed),  all,  in  fine,  whom  he  supposed 
qualified  to  give  advice  in  the  case. 

Again,  at  the  time  the  Alexandrian  version  was  made, 
the  Jews  whose  homes  were  in  Egypt  were  united  in  the 
closest  bonds  of  religious  communion  with  those  Jews 
who  lived  in  Palestine.  Egyptians  and  Palestinians— 
the  principal,  it  may  be  said,  the  only  two  classes  of 
Jews  at  the  time,  in  fact,  differed  only  in  language  and 
country,  so  far  as  is  now  known.  They  worshipped  in 
the  same  Temple— that  of  Jerusalem,  professed  the 
same  belief,  practised  the  same  ceremonies,  observed  the 
same  feasts,  and,  as  all  admit,  had  at  that  time  the  same 
sacred  books.  Now,  therefore,  as  those  of  Egypt,  ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  their  own  writers,  (for  two 
out  of  the  three  named  above  belonged  to  that  country), 
believed  that  it  was  the  prerogative  of  the  High  Priest 
to  decide  whether  a  book  was  canonical  or  not,  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  the  Jews  of  Palestine  thought  other- 
wise :  even  were  we  unable  to  cite  in  proof  of  a  com- 
mon belief  on  the  point  the  evidence  of  Josephus,  one 
of  themselves.  For  in  a  little  more  than  a  century  after- 
wards, Onias,  whose  right  to  the  chief  priesthood  was 
incontestable,  but  who,  instead  of  being  allowed  to  oc- 
cupy that  dignity  peaceably,  was  compelled  to  seek  a 
refuge  in  Egypt,  succeeded  in  erecting  there  a  temple, 
with  the  permission  of  Ptolemy  Philometer.  It  was  mod- 
elled after  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  and  was  served  by 
priests  and  Levites,  Onias  himself  being  High  Priest.  * 
As  a  religious  centre  for  the  Jews  residing  in    Egypt 

'  Jos.,  A)itiq.,  B.  xiii.,  c.iii.,  ^  1-3;  Wars,  W.  i.,  c.  i.,  ^  I;B.  vii.,  c.  x.,  §  ?.  3. 


I04  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

it  seems  to  have  filled  an  important  purpose  for  many 
years,  until  further  access  to  it  was  forbidden  the  Jews, 
and,  its  doors  having  been  closed  by  an  imperial  decree 
in  the  reign  of  Vespasian,'  it  disappeared  from  history. 
In  the  service  of  that  temple  the  Septuagint,  then  by  no 
means  a  rare  or  a  new  book,  but  the  only  cop)-  of  the 
Scriptures  which  the  worshippers  understood,  must 
have  had  a  conspicuous  place,  while  those  worshippers 
continued  to  send,  as  we  have  seen,  contributions  to,  and 
to  offer  sacrifice  in  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  maintaining 
all  the  time  religious  communion  with  their  brethren 
there.  Prideaux,  ""  however,  asserts  that  no  Jew  outside 
of  Egypt  "  acknowledged  the  temple  in  Egypt  at  all,  or 
any  other  but  that  of  Jerusalem  only,  but  looked  on  all 
those  as  schismatics  that  sacrificed  anywhere  else." 
For  this  statement  he  offers  no  proof,  and  although  the 
Law  of  Moses  directed  that  sacrifice  should  be  no- 
where offered  ''  but  in  the  place  which  the  Lord  shall 
choose," "  it  has  alread}^  been  shown  by  the  testi- 
mony of  Josephus  ''  that  offerings  for  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem  were  received  from  the  Jews  of  Egypt  as  well 
as  everywhere  else,"  which  would  not  have  been  the  case 
had  these  Egyptian  Jews  been  considered  schismatics, 
or  even  in  any  wa}'  unworthy  of  recognition  b}-  those 
who  had  the  right  to  pronounce  judgment  on  the  or- 
thodoxy of  all  who  professed  to  follow  the  Law  of  Moses. 
The  Samaritan  Jews  professed  to  follow  that  law.  In 
fact,  it  was  the  only  part  of  the  Old  Testament  that  they 
retained  or  cared  to  possess.     They  also  had  a  priest- 

'  Joseph.,  Wars,  B.  vii..  c.  x.,  ^  4. 

'  Connex.  vol.  ii.  128.      '>  Deut.  xii.  11.  •*  Supra,  p.  75. 

•■*  It  appears  from  a  remarkable  statement  of  Cicero,  in  his  defense  of  Lucius 
Flaccus,  that  annual  contributions  flowed  into  the  treasury  of  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem  from  Italy  and  all  the  provinces  of  the  empire— being  the  pious 
tribute  paid  to  their  religion  by  the  Jews  then  found  in  almost  every  country. 
To  such  a  degree  was  this  lavish  expenditure  carried,  that,  lest  the  resources 
of  the  provinces  might  be  exhausted,  it  was  found  necessary  in  some  inslances 
to  issue  edicts  agiinst  the  practice. 


Tlie  Cano/i  of  the  Old  Testament.  105 

hood  of  the  Aaronic  stock,  but  they  neither  sacrificed  in 
nor  made  offeringsto  the  temple  of  Jerusalem;  they  were 
not  even  tolerated  there,  nor  was  any  gift  at  their  hands 
received  there,  because  they  were  considered  schismatics; 
and  the  Jews  of  Egypt,  had  they  been  regarded  in  the 
same  light,  would  have  been  treated  in  the  same  way. 
But  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  that  the  temple  of  Onias  may 
have  been  regarded  with  no  favor  by  the  zealots  at  Jerus- 
alem. In  fact,  Jost,  a  German  Jew  writing  in  the  present 
century,  affirmed  that  in  the  older  Mishna  it  is  said  : 
"  Priests  who  have  ofificiated  in  the  temple  of  Onias  cannot 
officiate  in  Jerusalem;  they  are  looked  upon  as  priests  who 
have  infirmities;  they  may  participate  and  eat  of  the  offer- 
ings, but  cannot  offer."  '  Not  a  single  hint,  however,  to 
this  effect  is  found  in  any  work  written  while  the  temple  of 
Onias  was  standing.  On  the  contrary,  it  appears  from  II. 
Machabees,  that  fraternal  intercourse  with  the  Jews  of 
Egypt  was  assiduously  cultivated  by  the  Jews  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  even  Josephus,  though  he  frequently  refers  to 
Onias,  his  priests,  temple,  and  the  manner  in  w^hich  it  was 
fitted  up,  insinuates  bv  no  word  that  those  who  officiated 
there  were  judged  unworthy  to  officiate  at  Jerusalem.  Be- 
sides, both  temples  had  disappeared  long  before  the  oldest 
writers  of  the  Mishna  could  have  known  by  actual  experi- 
ence how  the  priests  belonging  to  one  were  treated  in  the 
other. 

In  view,  therefore,  of  the  divine  ordinance  defining  the 
prerogatives  of  the  High-Priest — in  view  of  the  inspired 
statements  subsequently  made  in  relation  to  that  point — 
in  view  of  the  belief  implied  in  the  account  given  by  sev- 
eral Jewish  winters  regarding  the  means  employed  for 
preparing  a  Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures — 
and  in  view^  of  the  fact  that  the  Hellenists  all  along  i-ecog- 
nized  as  orthodox  Jews  in  Jerusalem,  adopted  that  ver- 
sion under  the  conviction  that  it  had  the  sanction  of  the 
High-Priest,  it  may  surely  be  regarded  as  certain,  that  by 
divine  appointment  it  belonged  to  him  to  draw  the  line 
between  sacred  and  profane  compositions,  in  other  words 
to  regulate  the  Canon  of  Scripture. 

'   Milman,  Hist,  of  th:  Jezos.  ii..  p.  34,  imte  i. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


At  the  coming  of  Christ  the  Jews  had  a  fixed 
Canon.  That  Canon  included,  besides  what  is 
NOW  contained  in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  all  that 

THEN  belonged  TO  THE  ALEXANDRINE  VERSION. 

From  first  to  last,  unbroken  religious  communion  and 
fraternal  relations  were  cherished  between  the  Jews  of 
Egypt  and  those  of  Palestine.  But  by  both  those  who 
belonged  to  Samaria  were  treated  as  outside  the  pale 
of  the  Jewish  church,  as  appears  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment,' the  Gospel  ^  and  Josephus  ;  ^  while  their  temple 
on  Mount  Garizim  was  execrated  as  a  refuge  of  rene- 
gades, and  a  place  unworthy  of  any  consideration."  It 
was  far  otherwise  with  regard  to  the  temple  at  Leonto- 
polis ;  for  it  was  not  only  frequented  and  venerated  by 
the  Egyptian  Jews  and  other  Hellenists,  but  at  the  very 
least  tolerated,  if  not  sanctioned,  b\'  the  highest  ecclesias- 
tical authority  at  Jerusalem.  To  account  for  so  marked 
a  distinction  made  by  the  Palestinian  Jews  between  the 
temple  at  Garizim  and  that  at  Leontopolis,  may  not  be 
an  easy  matter,  although  all  admit  that  it  existed,  and 
was  at  all  times  rigidl}*  enforced.  Yet,  it  seems  that  a 
ready  explanation  may  be  found  in  the  difference  of  the 
causes  which  led  to  the  creation  of  the  two  sanctuaries. 
The  former  was  the  work  of  an  apostate,  and  was  sought 
as  an  asylum  by  all  who,  being  actuated  by  his  spirit, 
would  no  longer  be  tolerated  at  Jerusalem.     The  latter 

'  Nehem.  iv.  8.  ^  Antiq.^  B.  xiii.,  c.  iii.,  %  4;B.  xx.,  c.  vi.,  §  I. 

"^  John  iv.  9.  ■•  Ibid.,  B.  xi.,  c.  viii;  B.  xiii.,  c.  iii.,  %  4. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  107 

claimed  as  its  founder  one  whose  right  to  the  High  Priest- 
hood nobody  disputed,  and  was  intended  by  him,  not 
as  a  refuge  for  outcasts,  but  as  a  shrine  where  all  who 
found  themselves  by  choice  or  necessity  in  Egypt  could 
worship  after  the  same  form,  as  their  fathers  had  done 
before  them.  As  such  it  had  been  started,  and  as  such 
it  was  continued,  until  the  Emperor  Vespasian,  fearing 
that  it  might  become  a  rallying  point  for  the  subjugated 
but  still  turbulent  Jews,  directed  that  it  should  be  shut 
up.  While  it  stood,  was  it  not  possible,  some  might 
have  said,  that  Onias,  being  the  only  rightful  heir  to  the 
chair  of  Aaron,  might  have  carried  with  him  to  Egypt 
all  the  authorit}'  belonging  to  Aaron's  office,  and  trans- 
mitted it  to  those  who  succeeded  him  at  Leontopolis  ? 
Besides,  it  might  have  been  argued,  that  the  ordinance  of 
Moses  prohibiting  sacrifice,  unless  in  the  place  which  God 
should  choose,  referred  only  to  the  land  of  Canaan.  In 
that  case,  while  the  temple  in  Garizim  was  clearly  unlaw- 
ful, that  at  Leontopolis  could  not  be  considered  schis- 
matical  nor  even  irregular.  x\dd  to  this  the  flagrant  dis- 
orders, which,  as  all  know  who  have  read  the  Books  of 
Machabees,  the  works  of  Josephus,  or  even  the  four 
Gospels,  disgraced  the  conduct  of  many  of  the  High 
Priests  at  Jerusalem.  Ambition  and  avarice,  sacrilege 
and  simonv,  murder  and  rapine,  drunkenness  and  con- 
cubinage, apostas}'  and  paganism,  are  among  the  crimes 
laid  to  the  charge  of  several  who,  from  the  compvdsory 
flight  of  Onias  until  the  final  destruction  of  the  Jewish 
commonwealth,  right  or  wrong,  occupied  the  highest 
position  in  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem.  And  to  the  black 
list  of  enormities  entered  up  against  them  must  be  added 
the  perpetration  of  atrocities,  to  the  honor  of  humanity, 
rare  among  any  class  of  men,  but  specially  revolting  in 
a  minister  of  God — matricide,'  fratricide  '  and  the  indis- 
criminate slaughter  of  hundreds  of  Jewish  women  and 

'  Jos.,  Anliq.,  B.  xiii.,  c.  xi.,  ^  I.  -   Ibid.,  B.  xi.,  c.  vii.,  $  I. 


io8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

children.'  The  office  often  carried  with  it  supreme  au- 
thority in  civil  affairs,  and  was  not  unfrequently  disposed 
of  to  the  highest  bidder.'  And  for  some  time  before 
the  city  was  besieged  by  Titus,  a  band  of  assassins,  who 
tyrannized  over  the  inhabitants,  without  an}^  regard  to 
the  right  of  succession  or  the  qualifications  which  the 
office  required  in  its  occupant,  appointed  whomsoever 
they  pleased.  The  last  to  fill  the  office  was  Phannias,  a 
mere  rustic,  though  of  the  line  of  Aaron,  but  selected 
for  it  by  lot,  as  the  assassins  had  directed.^  Vacancies 
in  the  High  Priesthood  were  often  caused  by  expulsion 
as  well  as  death.  So  that,  though  at  first  there  could  be 
but  one  High  Priest,  in  the  course  of  the  time,  and  especi- 
ally towards  the  end  of  the  theocracy,  the  coexistence  of 
several  High  Priests  was  a  common  affair.  Appoint- 
ments and  removals  were  arbitrarily  made,  not  only  by 
the  native  princes,  but  even  by  foreign  potentates,  who 
from  time  to  time  extended  their  sway  over  Palestine  ;  ' 
and  the  selections  on  such  occasions  were  not  always  in 
the  line  of  regular  succession,  nor  even  from  the  tribe  of 
Levi.^ 

No  wonder  that  dire  portents  of  impending  calamities 
were  seen  at  Jerusalem. '  Surely,  good  men  (and  there 
were  still  many  such)  must  have  asked  themselves,  is  God 
about  to  abandon  his  sanctuary,  or  has  He  already  done 
so  ;  and  are  we  henceforth  to  look  to  the  temple  of  Onias 
as  the  seat  of  His  majesty,  and  the  hallowed  spot  where 
He  has  placed  His  name  ?  For  so  far  as  known,  while  the 
conduct  of  the  High  Priest  at  Jerusalem  must  have  been 
too  often  a  stumbling  block  and  a  reproach  to  God's  peo- 
ple; that  of  Onias  and  his  successors  was  not  unworthy 
of  the  brightest  period  in  the  histor}'  of  those  dignitarie«, 
who  exercised  the  authority  of  the  supreme  pontificate 

'  Joseph.  Antiq.  B.  xiii.,  c.  xiv.,  §  \-zWars,  B.  i.,  c.  iv.,  ^  6. 

-   II.  Mach.  iv.  28.  24.  *  Jos.,   Wars.,  B.  iv.,  c.  iii.,  v^  6-8. 

^  JT.  Mach  iv.  7,  8,  24.     '-'  Ibid.,  iii.  4;  iv.  23-29.     *  Jo.s.,  Wars.  B.  vi..  c.  v.,  §  3. 


The  Cation  of  the  Old  Testament,  109 

in  Solomon's  gorgeous  Temple,  or  in  the  less  pretentious 
shrine  (A  the  wandering  tabernacle.  While  such  was 
the  state  of  religion  among  the  Jews  in  Palestine  and 
Egypt,  those  of  the  latter  country  had  gradually  adojU- 
ed  the  additions  made  to  the  Septuagint  as  left  by  the 
interpreters,  and  duly  authorized  by  the  High  Priest  at 
Jerusalem  when  crimes  among  those  who  ministered  lo 
the  Lord  were  there  comparativel}'  unknown.  Strange 
would  it  not  be,  if  in  the  circumstances  the  Palestinian 
Jews  failed  to  follow  the  example  thus  set  by  their 
Egyptian  brethren,  especially  as  no  word  of  warning, 
protest,  or  prohibition  was  uttered  by  High  Priest  or 
Sanhedrim?  That  the  Palestinian  Jews  did  actually 
embrace  in  their  canon  all  the  books  comprised  in  the 
Old  Testament  used  b}'  the  Hellenists,  cannot,  of  course, 
be  absolutely  demonstrated.  But  the  facts  all  point  that 
way.  And  if  there  ever  was  a  case  in  which  presump- 
tive evidence  leads  to  a  morally  certain  conclusion,  sure- 
ly the  case  before  us  is  such.  For  in  it  all  the  circum- 
stances are  of  a  nature  to  indicate,  that  if  there  was 
among  the  Jews  at  the  time  a  canon  of  Scripture,  as 
that  Wvord  is  now  understood,  that  canon  was  necessarily 
one,  and  that  07ie  no  other  than  the  one  which  the  apostles 
found  among  the  Hellenists  and  delivered  to  the  churches 
which  they  planted. 

It  has  been  seen  in  the  course  of  the  present  work, 
that  there  is  abundant  evidence  to  prove  that  the  Jews, 
ever  since  their  final  dispersion  as  a  nation,  have 
held  :  first,  that  from  the  time  of  Moses  onward  they 
possessed  a  canon  of  Scripture,  or  what  is  equivalent, 
a  collection  of  books  regarded  by  them  as  divine ; 
and  second,  that  that  canon  was  completed  and  closed 
by  Esdras  the  Scribe.  The  hrst  of  these  points  is  and 
has  been  agreed  on  by  all  Christians  who  believe  that 
the  Bible  was  written  by  men  inspired  for  that  pur 
pose.     The  second  is  admitted,  even  insisted  on.  by  most 


I  lo  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Protestants ;  who,  however,  to  avoid  chronological  diffi- 
culties, say,  that  the  canon  was  not  closed  until  probably 
more  than  a  century  after  the  time  of  Esdras,  when 
Simon  the  Just  brought  it  to  its  present  condition;  after 
which,  they  assert,  no  further  additions  were  or  could  be 
made  to  it.  But  as  the  second  point  stands,  it  has  been 
absolutely  rejected  by  all  Catholics.  For,  while  some, 
probably  by  far  the  greater  number  among  them,  have  at 
all  times  believed  that  the  canon  now  received  by  the 
Jews  was  principally  the  work  of  Esdras,  but  neither  com- 
pleted nor  closed  before  the  Christian  era,  when  it  was 
what  it  still  is,  being,  however,  then  under  apostolic 
sanction  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  the  deutero  books ; 
and  others  insist,  that  besides  the  present  or  Palestinian 
canon  there  was  an  Alexandrine  canon,  which  was  re- 
ceived by  the  Hellenists,  it  being  identical  with  the  one  ap- 
proved by  the  Council  of  Trent ;  and  others  again  are  of 
opinion  that  the  Esdrine  canon  received  additions  from 
time  to  time,  until  it  assumed  the  dimensions  of  the 
Alexandrine  canon,  the  onl}- one  in  use  at  last  among  the 
Palestinians  as  well  as  Hellenists, — a  few,  with  several 
Protestant  critics,  now  contend,  that  until  after  the 
apostles  had  commenced  their  labors,  the  Jews  had  no 
well  defined  canon  of  Scripture.  Then  and  not  before 
(say  these)  did  the  Jews  decide  on  adopting  the  one 
which  they  now  follow. 

Enough  having  been  said  already  on  the  second  point 
for  which  the  Jews  contend,  it  is  now  proposed  to  con- 
sider whether,  consistently  with  all  the  facts  in  the  case, 
it  can  be  maintained,  that  until  the  apostolic  age  the 
Jews  had  no  fixed  canon,  or  whether  these  facts  are 
such  as  to  prove  the  verv  contrary.  In  entering  on  this 
inquiry  we  are  necessaril}^  confronted  by  the  first  point 
insisted  on  by  the  Jews  and  conceded  by  most  Christ- 
ians, that  the  former  have  had  a  canon  ot  Scriptures 
from  the  time  of  Moses  up  to  the  present,  incomplete 


The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Test  anient .  1 1  r 

at  first  as  is  implied,  and  not  closed  until  long  after- 
wards. But  a  word  or  two  on  this  part  of  the  subject 
is  all  that  is  needed,  since  the  point  is  one  which  no 
Christian  with  a  due  respect  for  the  Bible  will  disjuite. 
Moses,  we  learn,  after  writing  the  Law,' delivered  it  to 
the  priests  and  all  the  elders  of  Israel,  telling  them  to 
read  it  every  seventh  year,  in  the  hearing  of  all  Israel, 
and  then  commanded  the  Levites,  who  carried  the  ark, 
to  place  it  beside  the  ark.  Of  course,  they  did  so.  He 
further  directed,^  that,  when  a  king  should  be  appointed, 
he,  from  a  copy  provided  by  the  priests,  should  write 
out  the  Law,  have  it  with  him,  and  read  it  all  the  days  of 
his  life,  so  that  he  might  thus  keep  God's  words  and 
ceremonies,  which  were  commanded  in  it.  That  these 
directions  were  not  altogether  disregarded  is  proved 
by  what  is  said  of  Josaphat,  ^  Josias,  *  and  others. '  And 
that  the  people,  even  after  the  captivity,  still  remembered 
that  their  fathers  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  the  Law 
read,  is  implied  in  the  request  made  to  Esdras."  To 
this  volume  containing  the  law  must  be  added  probably 
the  Book  of  Josue,  which,  or  at  least  part  of  which,  the 
author  wrote  in  the  volume  of  the  Law  of  the  Lord.  ' 
Thus  Josue  and  Moses  '  are  both  represented  as  writers, 
each  in  the  work  of  which,  according  to  the  almost 
unanimous  belief  of  Jews  and  Christians,  he  was  the 
author.  Now,  at  least  portions  of  what  had  been  writ- 
ten by  them  were  carefully  deposited  for  the  use  of  fu- 
ture generations  in  the  holiest  place,  within  the  pi-ecincts 
of  the  tabernacle  or  temple.     The  writings  of  which  these 

'  Deut.  xxxi.  9,  lo,  ii.  25,  26.  According  to  Cornely  (Introd.  spec,  in  L.  S. 
V.  T..  ii.,  42.)  by  "Law"'  is  here  meant  the  entire  Pentateuch. 

2  Deut.  xvii.  18,  19,  3  n    Paral.  xvii. 

■*  IV.  Kings  xxii.  16:  xxiii.  2;  II.  Paral.  xxxiv.  24,  30,  31. 

^  Nehem.  viii.  3,  18;  ix.  3;   xiii.  i :  II.  Mach.  viii.  23. 

*  Nehem.  viii.   i.  "  Josue  xxiv.  26. 

^  Exodus  xxiv.  4,  7;  xxxiv.  27,  28;  Num.  xxxiii.  2;  Deut.  xxviii.  58;  xxxi.  9, 
22,  24. 


1 1 2  Tlie  Canon  cf  the  Old  Testament. 

portions  were  extracts — the  Pentateuch  and  Josue — 
were  regarded  by  the  Jews  with  the  greatest  venera- 
tion ;  in  fact,  were  considered  by  them  divine.  It  could 
not  be  otherwise.  For  their  authors  were  proved  by 
their  acts  to  have  possessed  divine  authority.  Those 
among  the  Jews  who  were  contemporary  with  Moses 
and  Josue  had  the  same  reason  for  believing  their  writ- 
ings to  be  divine,  as  the  first  Christians  had  for  conclud- 
ing that  the  Gospels  were  dictated  by  the  H0I3'  Ghost. 
Here,  then,  we  have  the  germ,  as  it  were,  of  the  sacred 
canon,  and  of  this  germ  the  High  Priest,  and  he  alone, 
was  the  official  guardian.  For  Moses  had  directed,  that 
no  one  but  him  should  enter  into  the  Holy  of  Holies, 
where  the  Ark  with  the  Book  of  the  Law  beside  it  was 
kept,  and  him  but  once  a  year. '  Thus  the  onl}'  man  who 
could  identify  the  venerable  record,  allow  it  to  be  tran- 
scribed, or  verify  a  copy  of  it,  was  the  High  Priest — an- 
other and  a  by  no  means  frivolous  reason  for  believing, 
that  not  only  the  care  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  was  en- 
trusted to  the  High  Priest,  but  that  the  final  judgment  as 
to  their  canonicity  was  pronounced  by  him.  Of  course, 
therefore,  when  the  time  seemed  propitious  for  repro- 
ducing and  enforcing  the  Law  once  more,  Helcias  had 
no  difficulty  in  finding  it,  for  as  its  official  custodian  he 
knew  where  it  had  been  hidden  away  to  save  it  from 
destruction  or  desecration.  And  of  course,  too,  when 
at  the  suggestion  of  his  Jewish  counsellors,  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  decided  on  securing  a  Greek  translation 
of  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  he,  instructed  bv  the  Jews 
of  his  court,  understood  well  that  the  High  Priest  was 
the  only  one  from  whom  competent  interpreters  and 
a  correct  Hebrew  copy  of  those  Scriptures  could  be  ob- 
tained. This,  however,  by  the  way,  as  something  beside 
the  scope  of  the  pi-esent  remarks. 

It  is   evident   from    what   has  been  said  above,  that, 

'   Lev.  xvi.  2   34.  Heb.  ix.  7;  Josephus,  II.  Contra  Ap.,  %  8. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  113 

when  the  Pentateuch  was  finished,  and  at  least  that  part 
of  it  which  to  its  author  seemed  the  most  important 
was  deposited  by  the  side  of  the  Ark,  the  Jews  had  a 
canon,  incomplete  indeed,  but  soon  enlarged  by  the  ad- 
dition of  the  book  of  Josue,  and  designed  to  comprise 
the  contributions  of  other  inspired  writers,  until  God's 
holy  purpose  in  communicating  with  mankind  in  this 
way  should  be  fulfilled.  It  seems  most  likely,  that  be- 
fore the  revolt  of  the  ten  tribes  no  book  had  been,  or 
at  least  was  publicly  known,  to  have  been  added  to  this 
nucleus  of  a  canon ;  else  the  Samaritan  bible  would 
contain  more  than  a  moderately  correct  copy  of  the 
Pentateuch,  and  what  may  be  called  a  grotesque  book 
of  Josue.  '  The  schimatics  would,  of  course,  have  ex- 
cluded from  their  bible  not  only  the  writings  of  Solo- 
mon, against  whose  arbitrary  rule  they  had  protested,, 
but  such  books  of  kings  as  might  have  been  then  writ- 
ten ;  since  in  them  they  would  have  found  a  history  of 
the  house  of  David,  in  which  the}-  no  longer  desired  to. 
have  any  part.  But  they  could  have  no  objection  to 
include  in  their  bible  Judges  and  Ruth,  as  these  books 
contained  records  in  whose  study  and  preservation  they 
had  an  equal  interest  with  the  two  tribes,  which  re- 
mained lo3'al  to  Roboam.  There  is,  therefore,  good 
reason  for  believing,  that  at  the  time  of  the  schism, the 
only  books  generally  received  as  canonical  were  the  five 
of  Moses  and  that  of  Josue.  That  before  that  time,  how- 
ever, as  well  as  after,  many  books  were  written  is  cer- 
tain. Solomon's  books,  of  course,  preceded  the  schism, 
and  the  same  remark,  no  doubt,  applies  to  Judges,  Ruth, 
and  the  early  portion  of  Kings ;  though  the  canoni- 
city  of  all  these  was  not  then  decided,  or  not  publicl}' 
known.     The  other  books  belong  to  various  subsequent 

'  If  it  be  true,  as  Josephus  says  (I.  against  Apioii.,  $  6),  and  there  seems  to  be 
no  reason  to  doubt  it,  the  writing  of  the  national  records  was  committed  to  the 
high  priests  and  prophets,  many  records  besides  those  of  Moses  and  Josue  must 
have  been  already  written  before  the  death  of  Solomon. 


]  1 4  TIic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

dates  ;  and  the  time  when,  as  well  asthe  authority  by 
which,  they  were  placed  on  the  canon  is  still  a  matter 
of  dispute. 

It  is  well  known  that  collections  of  writings  were 
made  among  the  Jews  from  time  to  time. '  In  fact,  the 
very  principles  on  which  Jewish  society  was  based  ren- 
dered this  necessary.  For  these  writings  very  general- 
ly contained  genealogical  tables  or  statements,  by  which 
the  position  and  rights  of  each  family  and  its  relations 
to  other  families  had  to  be  determined.  And  therefore, 
whenever  the  country  was  disturbed  by  military  opera- 
tions, the  priests,  as  soon  as  peace  was  restored,  by  col- 
lating, examining,  and  rewriting  these  records;  repaired 
whatever  injury  they  had  received  during  the  preceding 
period  of  strife. '  That  this  was  probably  often  neces- 
sary appears  from  the  fact,  that  the  invaders  of  Judea 
seem  to  have  well  understood  that  the  patriotism  of  the 
inhabitants  was  -inspired  and  sustained  in  a  great  meas- 
ure by  their  sacred  literature,  and  they,  therefore, "  cut  in 
pieces,  and  burnt  with  fire  the  Books  of  the  Law  of 
God,"  and  even  "  put  to  death  every  one  with  whom 
the  books  of  the  Testament  of  the  Lord  were  found.  "  ' 
That  on  such  occasions  some  portions  of  the  sacred 
literature  possessed  by  the  Jews  must  have  perished,  can 
hardly  be  doubted,  especially  since  in  what  is  left  of  it 
the  names  of  books  now  no  longer  extant  are  frequently 
mentioned.  That  many  of  the  Hebrew  books,  which 
escaped  the  blind  malice  of  the  Gentiles  and  the  many 
dangers  incidental  to  written  records,  belonged  to  that 
class  of  Scripture  now  rejected  by  all  Christians  as 
apocr3^phal,  while  a  fair  proportion  of  the  whole  was 
worthy  of  a  place  on  the  same  catalogue  with  the  earliest 
contributions  to  the  canon,  few  will  venture  to  deny. 
And  therefore  all  the  circumstances  warrant  the  belief 

'  II.  Mach.  ii.  13,  14. 

*  Josephus,  I.  Contra  Apion.,  ^7.  *  I.  Mach.  i.  59,  60. 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  115 

that  the  collections,  which  i)ious  and  learned  men  from 
age  to  ag-e    made    of    the  Hebrew    writings,  comprised 
books   that  were  divine,   books   that  at   the  time  were 
doubtful,  and  books  that  were  purely  human.     But  that 
such  an  incongruous  mixture  should  remain  an}-  length 
of  time  without  sifting,  and  thus  at  last  be  popularly  re- 
garded as  God's  holy  word,  is  not  consistent  with  that 
constant    care   of  divine  Providence,  which,  in    all    the 
vicissitudes  that  befell  the  Jews,  preserved  among  them 
the  only  true  religion,  and    had  already  selected  their 
records  as  the  channels  through  which  He  was  to  com- 
municate His  will  and  a  knowledge  of  Himself  to   all 
nations.       There  must    have  been  at  hand,  all  through 
from    Moses    to   the  Messiah,    a    means   for  separatino- 
the    divine   from   the    human    in   all   such    collections. 
And  there  was,  that  means  being  the  supreme  authoritv 
vested  in  the  High  Priest,  and  by  which  he  was  enabled 
to   pass  upon  and  decide    definitively    the    constituent 
parts  of  the  canon.      True,  it  cannot    be  proved,  that 
the    books    written   before    the    captivity  were  alreadv 
collected  into  a  canon    when  that    calamity    occurred, 
any  more  than  it  can  be  shown,  that  the  first  collection 
of  the  kind  was  made  in  the  time  of  Esdras.      But  all 
the  circumstances  point  that  way.     The  books  were  in 
existence.      The  court, whose  duty  it  was   to  pronounce 
judgment   on   their   merits,  was  still  in  session.      And 
the  impending   crisis  was  of  a   nature  to  require,  that 
before  its  consummation  the  people  (if  the  matter  had 
not  been  already  attended  to)  should  be  provided  with 
copies   of   the   divine    records,    or   at    least   told    what 
books  they  were  to  receive  as  such  during  their  captivity. 
The   theory,   therefore,   that  the  Jews   had   no   fixed 
■canon  until  long  after  they  rejected  Christ,  may  be  dis- 
missed as  inconsistent  with   all   the   facts  in  the  case. 
Besides,  no  one  doubts  that  the  Jews,  from  the  time  of 
Moses,  have  always  believed  that  they  possessed  written 


1 1 6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

records,  and  that  they  considered  these  records  divine. 
Their  writers  both  sacred  and  profane  have  often  so 
stated.  The  fact  is  abundantly  attested,  for  instance,  in 
the  works  of  Josephus  and  Philo.  And  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  full  of  references  to  the  same  fact.  '  Besides,  it 
appears  from  the  Prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus,  that  al- 
ready more  than  a  century  before  the  time  of  Christ 
those  records  consisted  of  books  divided  into  three 
classes,  "the  law,  the  prophets,  and  the  rest  of  the 
books,"  this  last  class  comprising  all  such  books  as 
might  be  designated  "psalms,"  as  seems  implied  in  the 
words  of  Our  Lord  where  he  refers  to  the  things  that 
*'  are  written  in  the  Law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  Prophets, 
and  in  the  Psalms."  '  Josephus,  also,  who  wrote  near 
the  end  of  the  first  centur}^  recognizes  the  same  classifi- 
cation, when  he  speaks  of  the  five  books  by  Moses, 
thirteen  by  the  prophets,  and  four  containing  h3a-nns 
and  moral  precepts.  ^  It  is  therefore  certain,  that  long 
before  the  theocracy  became  extinct,  such  authoritative 
action  had  been  taken  regarding  the  books,  that  it  was 
well  known,  not  only  how  many  classes  they  were  com- 
posed of,  but  how  many  belonged  to  each  class;  though 
it  is  not  said  what  particular  books  were  included  in 
the  last  two  classes.  /\ny  doubt,  however,  on  this  point 
is  cleared  up  by  the  actual  contents  of  that  copy  of  the 
Old  Testament,  which  the  apostles  left  with  the  churches 
wiiich  they  founded. 

It  cannot,  therefore,  be  admitted  consistently  with 
these  considerations,  that  the  Jews  had  no  certain  well- 
defined  canon  until  after  the  time  of  Christ ;  and  the  only 
reason  for  such  a  supposition,  after  all,  is  found  in  the 
doubts  said  to  have  been  expressed  b}-  some  Rabbins 

'  Ex.  xxiv.  7;  Deut.  xxviii.  58;  Jos.  viii.  31;  1.  Kings  x.  25;  I.  Paral. 
xxix.  29;  Nehem  viii.  i;  I.  Mach.  i.  59;  xii.  2;  II.  Macli.  viii.  23,  with  many 
other  texts. 

■^  Luke  xxiv.  44.  s   I.  Contra  Apioii.,  §  8. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  117 

shortly  before,  and  on  the  occasion  of  the  convention  at 
Jamnia, '  about  A.  D.  90.     It  may,  indeed,  be  granted 
that    there    was  some,  even   considerable   difference  of 
opinion  among-  the  Jewish  doctors  at  that  time.     For 
nothing  else  was  to  be  expected,  even  if  it  be  supposed 
that  the  Alexandrine  canon  had  been  approved  by  Ele- 
azar,  or  some  of  his  immediate  successors  in  the  High 
Priesthood  at  Jerusalem.     Historians,  both  sacred  and 
profane,  have  drawn  an  appalling  picture  of  the  gross 
abuses  connected  with  the  appointment  of,  and  of  the 
atrocious  crimes  committed  by  those  men    wdio   filled, 
rather  disgraced,  the  office  of  High  Priest  at  Jerusalem 
for   some   years   before   the  subversion    of   the  Jewish 
.commonwealth.  '      These    historians    w^ere    themselves 
Jews,  and  eye-witnesses  of  many  of  the  scenes  which 
they  describe.     For  a  long  time  ofter  the  institution  of 
the  High   Priesthood,  its   occupant  retained   his  office 
during  life.     But  towards  the  last,  the  removals  became 
so  frequent  that  the  co-existence  of  several  who  had 
performed  the  functions  of  High  Priest  followed  as  a 
matter  of  course.     Josephus  makes  mention  of  one  who 
in  the  time  of  Herod  was  "  made  High  Priest  for  a  sin- 
gle day."  =*     In  B.  C.  36,  Ananelus  w^as  the  first  Hie-h 
Priest  appointed  by  Herod,  who  soon  after  substituted 
for  him  his  own  brother-in-law  Aristobulus,  a  boy  not 
seventeen  years  of  age.     But  Herod,  having  put  him  to 
death,  reappointed  Ananelus.*     All  this  happened  in  the 
inside  of   three  years.     After    Herod's  death,  his  arbi- 
trary manner  of  filling  the  office  of   High    Priest  was 
continued   by  the  Roman  governors,  but  they  had  no 
recourse  to    his  summary   method  of  dispatching  that 
official.     Thns,  A.  D.  21,  Annas  was  removed  to  make 

'  Supra,  p,  68.  ^  Supra,  pp.  107,  108. 

3  Anliq.,  H.  xvii..  c.  vi.,   ^  4. 

^  Ibid.,  B.  XV.,  c.  ii.,  ^  4;  c.  iii.,  %  i;  c.  ii.,  ^S  6;  c.  iii..  %  3: 


1 1 8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

room  for  Ishmael.  The  next  year  Eleazar  was  directed 
to  take  the  place  of  Ishmael.  The  following  3'ear  Elea- 
zar was  deposed,  and  the  office  given  to  Simon.  And 
the  very  next  year  Simon  had  to  step  down  in  favor 
of  Joseph,  called  Caiphas.'  That  is  four  High  Priests 
in  so  many  years.  From  the  commencement  ot  the 
reign  of  Herod  until  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  there 
had  been  an  interval  of  107  years.  During  that  period 
the  number  of  High  Priests  was  twenty-eight.''  Now, 
if  it  be  supposed  that  every  one  of  these  was  appointed, 
or  succeeded  to  the  office,  immediately  on  the  death  or 
removal  of  his  predecessor,  the  duration  of  each  incum- 
bency would  average  only  a  little  more  than  three 
years  and  nine  months.  This  fact,  together  with  the 
influences  under  which,  according  to  the  Jewish  histori- 
an, and  the  testimony  recorded  in  the  inspired  books 
of  Machabees,  vacancies  were  made  and  filled  in  the 
office  of  the  High  Priesthood,  shows  very  clearly  that 
its  occupants,  besides  being  too  often  notoriously  in- 
competent, had  neither  the  liberty  nor  the  leisure,  and 
much  less  the  securit}-  necessar}-  for  a  full  and  faithful 
discharge  of  all  the  duties  pertaining  to  their  sacred 
trust.  That  trust,  if  attended  to  at  all,  must  in  its  most 
important  features  have  been  discharged  by  others, 
whose  acts  in  the  case,  as  done  in  violation  of  the  ordi- 
nance by  Moses,  would  be  null  and  void. 

But  by  whom  and  how  were  such  acts  done  ?  for  that 
they  were  done  there  is  no  doubt.  The  whom  and  the 
how  in  the  matter  are  clearly  indicated  in  the  New 
Testament,^  and  the  writings  of  Josephus.  '  It  thus 
appears,  that  for  at  least  almost  a  centurv  before  the 
time  of  Christ,  and  until  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
the  supreme  authority  in  religious  matters,  and  at  times 

'  Ibid.,  xviii.,  c.  ii.,    ^2.  -  Ibid.,  B.  xx. ,  ex. 

'  Matt.  xxvi.  59;   Mark  xvi.  r,  seq. 

^  Life,  ^  12;  Atitiq.,  \i.  xiv.,  c.  ix.,  §  3;  "  Wars,"' B.  ii.,  c.  xx.,  $  5; 
1'..   iv.,  c.  v.,  §  4. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcslixnicnt.  \  19 

in  court  affairs,  was  exercised  by  a  tribunal  known  among 
the   Jews   as   the    Sanhedrim  or  Council.      As   it   was 
modelled  upon  the  institution  founded  by  Moses,  '  the 
Sanhedrim,— which  held  its  sessions  in  Jerusalem,  decid- 
ed   in  causes  of  the  highest  importance,  and  received 
appeals  from  the  subordinate  councils,  consisting  each 
of  seven  judges  in    the  other  cities,— was  composed  of 
seventy    members.      These   included   chief  priests,  an- 
cients, and  scribes.-'     The  chief  priests  were  the  heads  of 
the   sacerdotal  families   or   courses.'     The  ancients,  or 
elders,  were  at  first  probably   heads  of  tribes,  but  to- 
wards the  end  of  the  theocracy  they  seem  to  have  been 
those  .members  of  the   Sanhedrim  who,   being  neither 
chief  Priests  nor  scribes,  were  considered   qualified  to 
occupy  seats  in  the  same   court  with  them,  on  account 
of  their  knowledge,  experience,  and  respectability.    The 
scribes  acted  as  secretaries,  notaries,  copyists,  expoun- 
ders of  the  Scripture,  lawyers,  and  teachers,  and  are  first 
mentioned  in  the  time  of  David,  although  long  before 
that  there  must  have  been  men  who  discharged  some 
of  the  functions  which  they  exercised.     But  as  readers 
and  expounders  of  the  Scriptures  they  claimed  Esdras 
as  the  founder  of  their  profession.     The  other  two  clas- 
ses of  which  the  Sanhedrim  was  composed,  ti-aced  their 
origin  as  far  back  as  the  age  of   Moses.     Besides  the 
Essenes,  a  Jewish  sect  remarkable  for  the  ascetic  life 
of  its  members,  there  were  two  other  sects  among:  the 
Jews — the  Pharisees  and    Sadducees.      Their   origin  is 
uncertain,  but  they  are  known  to  have  been  disturbing- 
elements  in  Jewish  society  about  B.  C.  108,  in  the  reign 
of    John    Hyrcanus."      The    Pharisees    overlaid    Gods 
written   w^ord   with  puerile  and  false  traditions ;  while 
the  Sadducees,  if  they  did  not  reject  all  of  that  word  ex- 

'  Num.  xi.  16.  '^  Mark  xv.  i;  Luke  xxii,  66  seq. 

^  Dixon,  Inlrod.  to  S.  Script.,  II,    12 1. 

^  Jos.,  Antiq.,  B.  xiii.,  c.  x.,  ij  5  ;  IV.  Mach.  vii. 


120  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

cept  what  was  written  b}-  Moses,  perverted  its  meaning 
like  the  Pharisees,  saying  "  there  is  no  resurrection, 
neither  angel  nor  spirit."  '  One  part  of  the  Sanhedrim 
seems  to  have  been  made  up  of  Pharisees,  the  other  of  Sad- 
ducees  ;  at  least,  that  appears  to  have  been  the  case  on  the 
occasion  of  one  session.^  And  though  religiously  and  po- 
litically opposed  to  each  other,  they  made  common  cause 
against  Christ '  and  his  religion  in  its  infancy."  As  among 
the  Pharisees  in  general  respect  for  the  tradition  of  the 
ancients  was  insisted  on  as  an  indispensable  part  of  re- 
ligion, the  same  tenet  had  its  advocates  among  the 
scribes.^  And  while  the  sympathies  of  some  among  the 
latter  were  probablv  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  Phari- 
sees, others  among  them,  there  is  little  doubt,  looked 
with  favor  on  the  principles  professed  by  the  Sadducees. 
For,  the  errors  and  abuses  advocated  and  practised  by 
either  sect  seem  to  have  been  tolerated,  if  not  approved, 
by  all  whose  learning  and  social  position  raised  them 
above  the  level  occupied  by  the  common  people.  Of 
these  errors  and  abuses  the  scribes,  however,  are  repre- 
sented in  the  Gospel  as  not  only  apologists,  but  strenu- 
ous defenders ;  and  therefore  the}-  are  very  justly 
included  in  the  woes  and  bewares  launched  by  our 
Lord  against  both  sects."  Yet,  though  the  Pharisees 
were  notorious  for  their  hypocrisy  and  pride,  and  the 
Sanhedrim,  in  which  they  possessed  great,  if  not  a 
controlling  influence,  is  known  to  have  utterly  disregard- 
ed the  ordinary  restraints  of  moderation  and  justice  in 
many  of  its  proceedings,  what  is  said  of  Nicodemus,  ' 
Joseph  of  x^rimathea,  *  and  Gamaliel'  shows  that  there 
were  men  in  each  body  free  from  the  sins  which  pre- 
vailed among  a  majority   of  their  associates.     Some  of 

'  Acts  xxiii.  8.  '  Acts    xxiii.  6.  '  Matt  xvi.  i  seq. 

*  Acts  xxiii.  6.  ^  Matt.  xv.  i,  2.. 

•^  Ibid.  xvi.  6;  xxiii.;  Luke  xx.  46.         '  John  iii.  i — 9  •  vii.  50,  54;  xix.  39. 

«  Matt,  xxvii.  57,  60;  Mark  xv.  43,  46.  '  Acts  v.  34,  39. 


The  Canoji  of  the  Old  Testament.  121 

the  priests  were  Pharisees ;  Josephus,  himself  a  priest, 
was  a  member  of  the  sect ; '  so  was  Jozar,  another  priest.^ 
Very  probably  others  of  the  priestly  stock  were  Saddu- 
cees;  Caiphas  the  High  Priest,  who  condemned  Our  Lord, 
likely  belonged  to  that  sect.'  But  it  is  certain  that  Ana- 
nias, another  High  Priest,  who  in  the  year  62  had  St. 
James  the  Less  stoned  to  death;  w^as  a  Sadducee." 

But  enough.  Long  before  the  date  just  mentioned 
High  Priest  and  Sanhedrim,  to  the  crimes  of  which  they 
were  but  too  often  guilty,  had  added  those  of  heresy 
and  blasphemy,  thus  showing,  that  the  light  of  heaven 
had  been  already  withdrawn  from  them.  And  the  ap- 
palling cry  of  "  Let  us  go  hence,"  which  is  said  to  have 
greeted  the  ears  of  the  priests,  as  they  entered  by  night 
the  inner  court  of  the  temple,'  simply  announced  that 
all  was  finished,  and  that  the  last  act  in  a  tragedy  which 
had  commenced  in  a  gradual  corruption  of  revealed  re- 
ligion, and  culminated  in  the  rejection  of  the  Messiah 
by  God's  own  people,  was  about  to  close  with  their  ex- 
tinction as  a  nation,  and  their  seeming  reprobation  as  a 
race. 

Here  might  be  the  proper  place  for  discussing  the 
relations  of  the  High  Priest  to  the  Sanhedrim,  in  or- 
der to  ascertain  whether,  as  Milman'  and  others  say, 
"  the  Sanhedrim  ....  usurped  in  some  degree  upon  the 
authority  of  the  High  Priest  "  or^  as  Calmet '  with  some 
critics  believes,  the  judicial  authority  attached  originally 
to  the  office  of  the  latter  remained  intact  to  the  last. 
Such  discussion  here,  however,  is  uncalled  for,  as  the 
object  of  the  present  argument  can  be  reached  without 
wasting  time  in  considering  a  point,  about  which  emi- 
nent writers  are  not  agreed.  For,  whether  or  not  the 
Sanhedrim  had  encroached  on  the  authority  inherent  in 

'  Life,  §  i.,  2,  '^  Ibid.  §  39.  ■'  Acts  iv.   I ;  v.  17. 

•*  Jos.,  Antiq.,  B.  xx.  c.  ix.,  §  i.  •''  Ibid.,  IVars,  B.  vi.,  c.  v.,  §  3. 

•"'  Ilisl.  of  the  Jti.vs,  ii..  1 15.  '   Dissert,  de  Pol.  et  Sanhed.  Hebr. 


122  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

the  Hiofh  Priest's  office — when  it  is  remembered,  that 
for  some  time  before  the  destruction  of  the  Temple,  and 
even  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  that  office  was  in 
some  instances  a  matter  of  bargain  and  sale,  at  times 
conferred  on  a  favorite  by  the  predominant  political 
faction  or  the  secular  prince,  even  though  a  pagan  ;  that 
the  successful  competitor  was  not  always  entitled  to  it 
by  right  of  succession  or  even  descent  from  Aaron  ;  and 
that  his  tenure  of  the  dignity  depended  not  so  much  on 
his  own  good  conduct,  as  on  the  caprice  of  the  civil  rul- 
er, or  the  intrigues  of  violent  parties  struggling  for  su- 
premacv — the  conclusion  must  be,  that  the  judicial  acts 
of  the  High  Priest  were  so  tainted  as  to  be  generally 
doubtful, — it  might  be  said,  unquestionablv  invalid. 

It  does  not  appear  that  from  the  time  of  Eleazar  the 
High  Priest,  who  provided  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  with 
a  copy  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  interpreters  to 
translate  it  into  Greek,  until  the  advent  of  the  Redeemer, 
the  compass  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  occasioned  any 
discussion  among  Palestinians  and  Hellenists;  though  it 
is  well  known  that  the  books  constituting  the  divine 
collection  were  all  held  in  great  veneration,  and  care- 
fully studied  by  both  classes  of  Jews.  Nor  is  there  any- 
thing to  show  that  between  the  two  classes,  or  the  mem- 
bers of  either,  this  point  was  at  any  time  within  the 
period  mentioned  a  subject  of  controversy  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  one  on 
which,  as  yet,  no  diversitv  of  sentiment  had  been  con- 
ceived, much  less  expressed.  For  the  Jewish  writers, 
whether  sacred  or  profane,  who  flourished  during  the 
interval  in  question,  make  no  reference  whatever  to  any 
disagreement  of  the  kind.  Now,  while  this  wasthe  case, 
the  Alexandrine  version,  with  all  the  deutero  books,  was 
in  constant  use  among  the  Jews  throughout  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  even  in  the  hands  of  all  who,  understanding 
Greek,  continued  to  reside  in  Palestine.       But  no  one 


The  Caiuvi  of  the  Old  Tcsiauicnt.  12;^ 

can  say,  what  books  in  the  meantime  were  contained  in 
the  Hebrew  Bible,  with  the  exception  of  the  five  Books 
of  Moses,  which  constituted  the  first  class.  For  the 
terms  applied  to  the  other  two  classes — the  prophets, 
and  the  rest  of  the  psalms  or  hymns — are  too  vague  for 
any  one  to  draw  up  an  exact  list  of  them.  The  attempt 
has  been  made,  but  hardly  any  two  of  those  who  did  so 
have  reached  the  same  result.  Nevertheless,  the  very 
general  use  made  of  the  Greek  version,  with  itsdeutero 
books,  by  all  Greek-speaking  Jews,  together  with  the 
acquiescence  in,  not  to  say  the  sanction  of,  this  practice 
b}-  those  Jews  who,  either  from  choice  or  necessity,  read 
the  Scriptures  in  the  Hebrew, — elders  and  scribes,  Phari- 
sees and  Sadducees,  Levites  and  priests,  chief  priests. 
Sanhedrim,  and  High  Priests, — render  it  morally  certain, 
that  that  version  with  all  belongnig  to  it  was  universally 
approved  by  the  Jewish  Church.  In  fact,  it  was  not  un- 
til far  in  the  second  century,  that  any  objection  was 
made  by  any  section  of  Jews  to  the  use  of  the  Greek 
version  ;  nor  was  it  until  some  time  in  the  sixth  century 
that  it  was  finally  rejected  by  the  Hellenists.  Indeed, 
the  rabbinical  Doctors  had  disputed  about  the  canoni- 
city  of  some  books  now  in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  long  be- 
fore they  condemned  as  unlawful  the  use  of  the  Septua- 
gint.  These  disputes  originated  in  a  diversity  of  senti- 
ment between  two  schools,  founded  or  headed,  one  by 
Rabbi  Hillel,  the  other  by  Rabbi  Shammai,  members  of 
the  Sanhedrim,  and  the  only  ones  spared  by  Herod, 
when  he  put  to  death  all  belonging  to  that  body.  As 
stated  in  a  preceding  page,'  in  order  to  preserve  due 
reverence  for,  and  prevent  the  unnecessary  use  of  the 
sacred  books,  it  had  been  decided  that  to  touch  them  de- 
filed the  hands.  This  rendered  it  necessary  to  declare 
what  books  were  sacred,  so  that  all  might  know  when, 
after   handling   books,  the  ceremony    of  purifying  the 

1  Note  2,  p.  68. 


1 24  The  Cano)i  of  the  Old  Tesiament. 

hands  had  or  had  not  to  be  performed.  But  the  at- 
tempt to  clear  up  such  an  abstruse  point  in  rabbinical 
casuistry  developed  discordant  views  among  the  Doctors. 
The  strife  was  occasioned  by  Canticles  and  Ecclesiastes, 
whose  power  to  defile  the  hands  some  advocated  while 
others  denied.  At  last,  however,  in  an  assembl}'  held  at 
Jamnia,  about  A.  D.  90,  the  controversy  was  brought  to 
a  close  b)^  a  decision  declaring,  that  defilement  was  the 
fate  in  store  for  all  hands  that  touched  either  book. 
And  thus,  at  last,  if  the  Jewish  writers  are  to  be  believed, 
their  canon  was  brought  to  its  present  condition.  At 
■least,  this  conclusion  follows  from  their  own  statement' 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


The  Canon  approved  by  the  High  Priest  and  cur- 
rent AMONG  THE  JeWS  UNTIL  THE  COMING  OF  CHRIST, 
MUTILATED  BY  THE  RaBBINS  WITHIN  THE  CHRISTIAN 
PERIOD,    IN   THAT   CONDITION    FOLLOWED   EVER   SINCE 

BY  THE  Jews,  and  finally  imposed  on  the  Reform- 
ers BY  THEIR  Rabbinical  teachers. 
The  conclusion  just  stated  is  not  correct,  because  it 
seems  taken  for  granted,  that  by  the  action  had  at 
Jamnia  every  book  now  belonging  to  the  Jewish  canon, 
and  about  which  there  had  been  any  doubt,  was  then 
officially  placed  thereon.  But  this  was  not  the  case. 
For,  had  it  been  so,  MeHto  '  Bishop  of  Sardis,  when 
giving,  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  a  list  of 
books  on  the  Jewish,  rather  rabbinical  canon, '  would 
not  have  omitted,  as  he  has  done,  all  mention  of  the 
book  of  Esther.  And  no  doubt  Esther,  with  the  other 
deutero  books,  were  the  very  "  many  scriptures,"  which, 
according  to  St.  Justin  Martyr,  a  contemporary  of 
Melito,  the  Jews  "  completely  wiped  out  of  the  transla- 
tion which  was  made  by  the  Elders  who  were  with 
Ptolemy."  '  St.  Justin  adds,  that  "  it  is  only  a  short  time 
since  they  were  wiped  out,"  '  as  if  the  spread  of  the 
Christian   religion   had   driven   the  Jews  to  this  sacri- 

'  Eusebius,  £cc/.  Hist.,  B.  iv.,  c.  26. 

2  From  the  time  that  the  divinely  appointed  superintendence  of  the  High 
Priest  over  the  canon  was  usurped,  the  canon  became  unsettled,  and  was  sup- 
planted by  what  is  properly  called  the  rabbinical  canon,  which  was  by  no  means 
the  genuine  Jewish  canon. 

3  Dialog,  with  Tryplio,  §  71.  "  Ibid.,§.  72. 


126  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

legious  act,  in  order  to  maintain  their  ground.  But,  he 
continues,  such  as  have  been  quoted  out  of  the  Script- 
ures spared  by  the  Jews  "  are  more  than  enough  to 
prove  the  points  in  dispute,  besides  tJiose  ivJiicJi  lue  have 
retained^  ^  As  much  as  to  say,  that  until  recently  there 
had  been  one,  and  but  one,  common  collection  of  sacred 
Scriptures,  out  of  which,  however,  the  Jews  had  dropped 
some,  while  the  Christians  retained  them  all.  Origen, 
who  lived  about  a  century  later,  while  enumerating  the 
books  on  the  Jewish  canon  in  his  time,  includes  among 
them  not  only  "  Jeremias  with  Lamentations,"  but  "  his 
Epistle" — the  last  chapter  at  least,  if  not  the  entire  book, 
of  Baruch,  the  whole  of  which  has  since  disappeared 
from  the  Jewish  canon.  Origen  further  remarks,  that 
he  found  among  the  Jews,  though  outside  the  other 
books,  Machabees,  "  which  are  inscribed  Sarbeth  Sarbane 
EV  "—probably  the  sceptre  of  the  prince  of  the  sons  of 
God."  In  a  part '  of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions,  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  written  about  the  middle  of 
the  third  century,  it  is  stated  that  the  Jews  on  the  c^nth 
of  the  month  Gorpiceus  assemble  together  and  read  the 
Lamentations  of  Jeremias  and  Baruch.  This  testimonv, 
as  well  as  that  of  Origen  just  cited,  convinced  WiUiam 
Whiston,  a  learned  Anglican  theologian,  that  the  book 
of  Baruch  was  canonical.  ■*  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  who 
flourished  in  the  fourth  century,  corroborates  the  state- 
ments of  Origen  and  the  Apostolical  Constitutions. 
For,  while  enumerating  the  books  on  the  Jewish  canon 
in  the  Prologue  to  his  Explanation  of  the  Psalms,  when 
he  comes  to  Jeremias,  he  says,  "Jeremias  with  Lamenta- 
tions, and  Epistle,"  and  he  further  remarks  that  to  some 
(Jews,  for  it  is  of  them  he  speaks)  it  seemed  proper,  by 
adding  Tobias  and  Judith,  to  increase  the  22  books  to 
24,  that  being  the  number  of  letters  in  the  Greek  alpha- 

'  Ibid.,  §  73.  ■^  Euseb.,  Reel.  Hist.,  B.  vi.,  c.  25. 

'  B,  V  ,  c.  20.  ■»  Kitto'o  Cxil.  on  Baiiich. 


TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  127 

bet.  Referring  to  these  two  books,  St.  Jerome,  who 
wrote  in  the  fifth  centur}-,  affirms  in  his  Prologues,  that 
Tobias,  though  separated  from  the  catalogue  of  divine 
Scripture  by  the  Jews,  was  placed  by  them  among  the 
Hagiographa,  and  Judith  was  read  by  them  also  among 
the  Hagiographa.  E})iphanius,  whose  life  was  also 
prolonged  to  the  fifth  century,  remarks  '  even  more 
distinctly  than  is  done  by  Origen,  that  the  Jews  consid- 
ered Baruch  part  of  Jeremias;  "up  to  that  time  when 
they  (the  Jews)  returifed  from  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
they  (says  he)  had  these  prophets  and  books  of  prophets. 
The  first  is  the  Book  of  Genesis Jeremias  the  Proph- 
et with  Lamentations,  and  epistles  as  well  of  him  as  of 
Baruch."  Epiphanius  further  observes,  that,  although 
Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  were  not  numbered  among 
the  Scriptures,  and  were  not  therefore  placed  in  the  Ark 
of  the  Covenant,  they  were  regarded  as  "useful  and 
profitable," '  of  course,  by  the  Hebrews,  for  it  is  of  them 
he  is  speaking.  St.  Isidore  of  Seville,  who  wrote  about 
the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  has  a  remarkable 
statement  about  the  rejection  of  Wisdom  by  the  Jews. 
He  says  that  the  Hebrews,  as  one  of  the  wise  men 
remembers,  received  the  book  among  the  canonical 
Scriptures,  but  that  after  crucifying  Christ  they  remem- 
bered, that  the  book  contained  proofs  of  His  divine 
mission,  and  therefore,  after  consulting  together,  they 
excluded  it  from  the  prophetic  volume,  lest  the  Chris- 
tians might  make  use  of  it  to  reproach  them  with  hav- 
ing sacrilegiously  put  the  Messiah  to  death.  ^ 

This  mass  of  testimony  renders  it  certain,  that  from 
the  first  to  about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  the 
Jews  had  no  fixed  canon.  Temple,  altar,  and  High 
Priesthood  had  disappeared,  and  so  had  the  canon.  The 
class  of  teachers  who  from  Moses  downwards  had  ex- 

1  L.  I.,  torn.  I.,  Hier.,  viii..  no.  vi.  (Migne).- 

2  Tract.  De  Mens,  ct  Pond.,  c.  iv. 

3  De  Ecclfsiastuis  Officiis  L.  i.e.  xii. 


128  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

pounded  the  law,  and  decided  what  books  were  to  be 
added  to  the  collection  which  he  left,  had  ceased  to 
exist,  and  their  place  was  taken  by  the  men  who  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  Talmud.  The  result  of  their  labors 
in  attempting  to  agree  on  a  canon  is  before  us.  The 
first  century  had  almost  closed,  before  all  discussion 
regarding  the  canonicity  of  Ecclesiastes  and  Canticles 
had  ceased  among  them.  It  was  only  towards  the  dawn 
of  the  third  century,  that  they  allowed  Esther  to  be 
placed  among  the  inspired  books.  Before-  that  a  stran- 
ger might  visit  their  schools  in  Palestine,  and  obtain  a 
catalogue  of  all  contained  in  their  Old  Testament.  But 
he  would  have  failed  to  find  therein  any  mention  of 
Esther,  while,  were  he  living  a  century  later,  such  a 
visit  would  have  convinced  him,  that  that  book,  and 
even  Baruch,  were  considered  strictly  canonical  among 
the  rabbinical  doctors.  The  other  deutero  books,  too, 
Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  and  Machahees, 
it  appears  from  the  evidence,  were  treated  by  the  Jews 
with  a  certain  degree  of  consideration,  if  not  veneration  ; 
they  had  them,  and  they  read  them  with  some  hope  of 
profit  or  advantage  from  doing  so.  Whether  they  be- 
lieved these  books  to  be  divine  or  not  cannot  be  known, 
but  as  they  were  allowed  to  have  and  to  read  them,  it  ma}' 
reasonably  be  inferred  that  they  recognized  no  differ- 
ence between  them  and  the  other  sacred  books,  espe- 
cially as  the  opinions  of  their  self-constituted  teachers 
were  uncertain,  fluctuating,  and  even  discordant  on  the 
subject.  But  what  a  change  in  a  matter  of  so  great  im- 
portance. During  New  Testament  times,  or  at  any 
period  before  that,  an  inquirer  will  search  in  vain  for 
any  sign  of  doubt,  hesitation,  discussion,  or  controversy 
regarding  the  compass  of  written  revelation.  Up  to 
near  the  close  of  the  first  century,  the  canon  among  all 
classes  of  Jews  appears  a  fixed  fact ;  but  from  that  date 
until  some  period  in  the  fifth  century,  it  seems  to  have 


The  La /I  oil  of  the  Old  Testament.  129 

been  treated  in  rabbinical  circles  as  a  sort  of  sliding 
scale,  or  an  unknown  quantity.  Two  causes  appear  to 
have  brought  about  this  result.  First,  as  the  sacerdo- 
tal class  no  longer  existed,  or  at  least  found  it  no  longer 
possible  to  perform  its  functions,  it  became  necessary 
that  other  arrangements,  besides  those  hitherto  employed 
for  the  purpose,  should  be  made  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  as  well  as  for  the  solution  of  all 
questions  referring  thereto.  Of  course,  their  studies  and 
pursuits  pointed  to  the  scribes,  as  the  only  profession 
qualified  to  take  charge  of  the  inspired  collection,  stili 
intact  and  the  most  precious  relic  of  the  fallen  theocra- 
cy. Indeed,  the  Gospels  -show  very  clearly,  that  the 
scribes  had  already  in  the  time  of  our  Lord  assumed 
or,  usurped  the  care  of  the  Scriptures ;  while  the  Rab- 
bins, the  learned  masters  belonging  to  that  class  of  Jews, 
are  known  by  their  own  statements  to  have  subsequent 
Iv  carried  on  with  each  other  the  prolonged  contest, 
which  left  the  Jewish  canon  as  we  have  it  to-day.  But 
the  Gospels  make  it  equally  clear,  that,  however 
qualified  the  scribes  may  have  been  by  their  learn- 
ing to  guard  the  precious  deposit  which  the  course  of 
events  had  placed  in  their  keeping,  their  senseless  ven- 
eration for  the  oral  law,  erroneously  supposed  to  have 
been  received  from  Moses,  rendered  them  incapable 
of  succeeding  in  the  task  they  had  undertaken.  It 
is  that  oral  law,  or  the  comments"  thereon,  or  what 
passed  as  such  at  the  time,  that  our  Lord  denounces  as 
"  the  tradition  of  men.  "  '  And  it  is  the  advocates  of 
that  system  whom  he  stigmatizes  as  "  blind  and  leaders 
of  the  blind.  "^  For  with  them,  in  matters  of  practice, 
that  oral  law  was  at  least  equal  in  authority  to  the  writ- 
ten. Indeed,  one  needs  no  better  proof  than  what  is 
furnished  in  the  Gospel,  to  be  convinced;  that  the  tradi- 
tions, of  which  the  former  consisted, too  often  served  as 

'   Mark  vii.  8.  '^   Matt.  xv.  14. 


130  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

a  valid  excuse  for  violating  the  spirit  and  even  the  letter 
of  the  written  revelation.'  Of  that  revelation  these  men 
could  not  be  faithful  guardians  or  interpreters,  to  whom 
its  Author  tauntingly  said  ;  "  Well  do  you  make  void  the 
commandments  of  God,  that  you  may  keep  your  own 
tradition.  " "  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  canon,  whether 
practically  or  formally  determined  by  the  Jewish  Church 
while  its  members  still  constituted  an  organized  commu- 
nity in  Palestine,  should  have  been  regarded  as  an  open 
question  by  such  teachers  for  centuries  after  the  syna- 
gogue had  taken  the  place  of  the  Temple,  and  the  author- 
ity of  the  High  Priest,  though  really  abolished,  had  been 
assumed  by  the  Rabbins  ;  and  that,  when  at  last  these 
agreed  on  a  canon,  that  canon  should  be  found  to  differ 
materially  from  the  one  which  the  apostles,  as  Jews,  had 
I'eceived  from  the  Jewish  Church  for  their  own  use,  and 
which  they,  of  course,  afterwards  placed  in  the  hands  of 
their  Christian  converts  ? 

But  there  was  another  reason  which,  more  than  an}-- 
thing  else,  contributed  to  the  uncertainty  and  fluctuation 
of  the  rabbinical  canon  for  some  centuries  after  the 
commencement  of  our  era,  and  resulted  at  last  in*  its 
permanent  mutilation.  Justin  Mart^'r,  so  far  as  known, 
is  the  first,  but  by  no  means  the  only  Christian  writer, 
who  charges  the  Jews  with  curtailing  the  Scriptures. 
His  words  given  above  are  such  as  to  show,  that  already- 
in  his  time  they  had  made  considerable  progress  in  the 
unholy  work,  though  Melito's  testimony  renders  it  cer- 
tain that,  when  he  wrote  (it  could  not  have  been  very 
long  after  Justin),  that  work  was  still  being  prosecuted, 
but  far  from  complete.  We  know,  besides,  from  the 
statements  of  Justin  and  later  Fathei-s,  that  the  canon  as 
it  stood  at  the  time,  at  least  among  Christians,  was  a 
cause  of  great  embarrassment  to  the  Jews,  who  found 

1  Matt.  xii.  1-8;  XV.  1-20;  xxiii.;   Mark  vii.  I-23. 
-  Mark  vii.  9. 


The  Caiioii  of  the  Old  Testament.  131 

it  impossible  to  answer  the  arguments  advanced  against 
their  tenets,  unless  by  denying  the  canonicity  of  many 
of  the  texts  on  which  those  arguments  were  based.  And 
this  was  the  coui-se  adopted  by  Trypho  in  his  dialogue 
with  Justin.  Trypho's  experience  was  not  exception- 
al. He  probably  was  not  the  first,  as  he  was  not  the 
last,  Jewish  controversialist  who  felt  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  his  own  ground  in  this  wa}^  against  his 
Christian  antagonist.  For,  during  long  centuries  the 
champions  of  the  two  religions  seldom  met,  without  en- 
gaging in  tilts  of  the  kind.  On  such  occasions  Trypho's 
tactics  were  so  often  employed,  that  it  became  the 
Christian  to  ascertain  first,  which  of  his  books  would  be 
rejected  by  his  opponent.  In  fact,  he  was  accustomed 
to  do  so.  There  appears,  therefore,  no  reason  for 
doubting  that  the  controversies  between  the  Christians 
and  Jews  early  convinced  the  latter,  or  rather  their 
leaders,  that  it  was  necessary  to  shape  anew  their  can- 
on, in  order  to  deprive  the  former  of  many  of  the 
Scriptural  proofs,  to  which  they  appealed  with  stunning 
effect,  when  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  religions 
were  the  points  discussed.  But  inasmuch  as  the  Sep- 
tuagint  alone  was  current  wherever  Greek  was  under- 
stood (and  that  was  generally  wherever  Jews  were 
found  outside  of  Palestine,  and  even  there  it  was  current 
side  by  side  with  the  Hebrew  Bible,  w^hatever  the  latter 
contained  at  the  time),  the  rabbinical  doctors  must 
have  found  it  extremely  difficult  to  agree  on  a  definite 
collection  of  Scriptures,  and  to  convince  their  followers 
that  there  was  nothing  wrong  in  excluding  certain  books 
from  that  collection. 

There  certainly  can  be  no  doubt,  that  at  the  time 
when  the  religious  authorities  at  Jerusalem  were 
brought  face  to  face  with  Christianity  as  distinct  from 
Judaism,  and  as  not  only  multiplying  "  the  number  of  its 
disciples  in  Jerusalem,"  but  even  adding  to  its  ranks  "  a 


132  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

multitude  also  of  priests," '  and  therefore  a  "  heresy  "  * 
to  be  stamped  out  by  all  means,  fair  or  foul,  the  Septua- 
gint  was,  it  may  be  said,  universally  used  outside  Pales- 
tine, and  very  generally  even  in  that  country,  while  .the 
range  of  the  Hebrew  was  necessarily  very  limited,  being 
restricted  mostly  to  Palestine.  Without  resorting  to 
what  has  been  already  said  on  the  subject,  the  reader 
will  find  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, '  written  at  the 
time,  enough  to  convince  him  that  the  circulation  here 
claimed  for  the  Septuagint  among  the  Jews  in  the  Apos- 
tolic age  is  not  at  all  exaggerated.  The  point  is  admitted 
by  Protestant  writers,  though  their  principles  compel 
them  to  depreciate  that  version  as  compared  with  the 
original.  Hence,  Professor  Smith  asserts  that  "  in  the 
times  of  the  New  Testament  the  Greek  and  Hebrew 
Bibles  w^ere  current  side  by  side  ;  and  men  like  the 
Apostles,  who  knew  both  languages,  used  either  text 
indifferently."  ^  And  Humphrey  Hody  ^  argues  on  the 
authority  of  Tertullian,"  Justin  Martvr,'  and  the  Jerusa- 
lem Gemara,**  that  the  Sacred  Scriptures  were  read  out  of 
the  Septuagint  in  the  synagogues  by  the  Hellenists.  To 
supplant  that  copy  with  another  of  less  compass,  even 
though  written  in  Greek,  and  thus  withdraw  from  the  peo- 
ple "  many  Scriptures,"  ^  to  which  they  were  so  long  ac- 
customed, was  therefore  a  task  which,  in  their  actual 
circumstances,  might  well  have  seemed  hopeless  to  those 
who  endeavored  in  this  way  to  prevent  the  dispersed 
Jewish  communities  from  being  engulphed  in  the  rising 
tide  of  aggressive  Christianity.  None  can  better  appre- 
ciate the  difficulty  of  such  a  task  than  a  modern  Prot- 

'  Acts  vi.  7.  -'  Ibid,  xxiv,  I4. 

^  Kenrick,  on  Acts  ii.  18;  vii.  14;   viii.  33;  xiii.  34-41. 
■•   The  O.  Test,  in  the  Je'wish  Church,  p.  102. 
'"  De  Bibl.  Text.,  pp.  224-227. 

•^  Apol.  c.  iS.  "  Ad  Grireos  Cohort,  p.  14.  Apol.  2.  pag.  72.  Dial,  cum 

Tryph.  p.  297.  298.  ■■*  Sotah.  c.  7.  «  Justin  M.  Dial,  cum  Tryph.  §  71. 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  133 

estant.  For  he  knows  that  the  founders  of  his  religion, 
more  than  three  hundred  years  ago,  attempted,  as  in- 
structed b}'  their  rabbinical  teachei's,  to  mutilate  the 
contents  of  the  inspired  volume,  which,  up  to  their  own 
time,  had  circulated  throughout  Christendom ;  and  that 
constant  efforts  in  the  same  direction  have  been  made 
ever  since  by  the  leaders  of  Protestant  thought.  But 
he  also  well  knows,  that  only  among  the  Protestants  in 
Great  Britain  and  America  has  the  attempt  been  even 
partially  successful,  and  that  not  until  the  present  cen- 
tury. For  on  the  continent  of  Europe  Protestant  Bibles 
still  generally  include  the  books,  which  the  reformers 
rejected. '  Yet,  for  mutilating  the  word  of  God  the 
Protestants  were  much  better  equipped  than  the  Jews, 
The  former  had  the  use  of  the  printing  press,  the  mod- 
ern postal  service,  the  willing  co-operation  of  secular 
rulers,  and  above  all  the  advantage  resulting  from  a 
very  common  belief, — which  all  who  embraced  it  soon, 
but  too  late  to  retrace  their  steps,  found  to  be  mistaken, 
— that  the  movement  was  destined  to  secure  for  the  con- 
science liberty  of  belief,  and  for  the  individual  freedom 
from  all  restraint.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Jews,  dis- 
persed, persecuted,  and  destitute  of  all  such  resources, 
had  nothing  to  depend  upon  for  success,  beyond  the 
wonderful  activity  and  personal  influence  of  their  Rab- 
bins, their  own  fanatical  devotion  to  these  fanatical  lead- 
ers, and  the  growing  conviction  among  them,  that  the 
only  way  to  answer  the  arguments  of  the  Christians  was 
to  contract  the  canon,  by  excluding  therefrom  as  many 
as  possible  of  those  books  from  which  the  Christians 
drew  their  pi-oofs.  Yet,  that  they  accomplished,  not 
very    long   after    they    had    decided   on    its    necessity  ; 

'  Am.  Encycl.  iii.  235.— Baron  Karl  Hildebrand  Catistein's  Bible  has  the  deu- 
tero  intermingled  with  the  proto  books.  Thirty  y?ars  ago  over  5,000,000  copies 
in  the  German  language  had  been  sold,  besides  those  in  the  Bohemian  language. 
— Ibid    iv.  379.      The  sale,  no  doubt,  still  continues. 


1 34  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

whereas  the  Protestants,  after  devoting  centuries  to 
the  same  task,  are  not  now  even  convinced,  that 
it  was  either  wise  or  expedient  to  undertake  it  in 
the  first  place.  Remarkable,  however,  is  the  coincidence 
of  purpose  and  plan  proposed  by  Jews  and  Protestants 
in  this  matter.  The  former  endeavored  to  justify  their 
rejection  of  the  Messiah  by  excluding  certain  books 
from  the  canon;  the  latter  sought  to  excuse  their  denial 
of  doctrines  taught  b}'  the  Church  of  the  Messiah,  by 
placing  these  same  books  also  outside  the  canon.  And 
to  complete  the  parallel,  as  the  Jews,  in  order  to  with- 
draw from  the  use  of  the  Old  Septuagint  all  who 
among  them  read  the  Scriptures  in  Greek,  and  to  have 
a  Greek  text  of  their  own,  with  which  they  might  meet 
the  arguments  of  the  Christians,  had  a  new  Greek  ver- 
sion made  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  as  it  stood  in  the  second 
centur}",  not  as  it  existed  about  five  hundred  years  before, 
when  the  seventy  interpreters  translated  it  for  tiieir 
Alexandrian  brethren,  so  the  Protestants,  to  wean  their 
followers  from  the  venerable  Vulgate,  and  provide  them 
with  texts  offensive  as  well  as  defensive  in  their  contro- 
versies with  Catholics,  prepared  for  them  translations 
of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  not  of  the  second  century, — for 
there  was  not  then  nor  is  there  now  any  such  older  than 
the  tenth  century,— but  of  that  Bible  as  they  found 
it  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Age  is  said  to  improve 
the  quality  of  wine,  but  is  admitted  for  many  reasons 
to  be  deleterious  to  all  documents,  printed  or  writ- 
ten, especially  when  they  have  been  often  copied,  as 
was  the  case  with  the  Scriptures.  The  text,  therefore, 
from  which  the  Protestants  translated,  must  have  been 
far  inferior  to  that  from  which  the  Vulgate,  twelve  hun- 
dred, and  the  Septuagint,  nearly  two  thousand  years 
before,  had  been  executed. 

Aquila,  who  prepared  the  Greek  version  for  the  Jews 
in  the  second  century,  had,  therefore,  before  him  a  He- 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  135 

brew  text  much  purer  than  the  one  which  Luther 
followed  in  the  sixteenth.  And  as  he  understood  Greek 
well,  it  being  probably  his  vernacular,  and  was,  besides, 
a  much  better  Hebrew  scholar  than  Luther,  whose  efforts 
as  a  translator  were  ridiculed  by  contemporary  critics, 
he  may  with  good  reason  be  supposed  to  have  creditably 
executed  his  task.  According  to  the  testimony  of  the 
Fathers  and  some  fragments,  which  alone  remain  of  his 
translation,  he  seems  to  have  adhered  closely,  even 
slavishly,  to  the  literal  sense  of  the  words,  so  that  it  has 
been  remarked  his  work  somewhat  resembled  a  diction- 
ary. Yet,  as  Luther's  German  in  many  passages  repre- 
sented his  own  errors,  not  the  true  sense  of  the  Hebrew 
which  he  undertook  to  interpret,  Aquila's  Greek,  being 
intended  solely  to  provide  the  Jews  with  such  a  text 
as  would  enable  them  to  maintain  their  position  better 
on  the  principal  point  at  issue  between  them  and  their 
Christian  opponents,  some  of  the  Fathers,  who  had  seen 
his  translation,  probably  not  without  good  reason, 
charged  him  with  misinterpreting  the  sense  of  the  Mes- 
sianic passages  in  the  original. 

A  native  of  Sinope,  in  Pontus,  Aquila,  while  still  a 
pagan,  was  appointed  by  his  kinsman,  the  Emperor 
Hadrian,  to  rebuild  Jerusalem.  Admiring  the  virtues 
practised  by  the  Christians  whom  he  met  there,  he 
asked  and  obtained  baptism  ;  but  persisting  in  the 
practice  of  astrology,  to  which  he  had  been  addicted 
before  his  conversion,  he  was  excommunicated.  Smart- 
ing under  this  disgrace,  he  resolved  to  embrace  Judaism, 
became  a  proselyte,  and  was  circumcised.  At  that  time 
the  most  celebrated  Rabbi  among  the  Jews  was  the  fiery 
but  unfortunate  Akiba,  who,  for  the  part  he  took  in  the 
last  disastrous  rebellion  of  his  people  against  the  Romans, 
was  fla3-ed  alive  in  the  reign  of  Hadrian.  A  disciple  of 
Akiba,  Aquila  acquired  a  thorough  knowledge  of  He- 
brew; and  being  already  familiar  with  Greek,  he  under- 


136  TJie  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

took  to  supply  the  Jews  with  such  a  Greek  translation 
as  they  could  substitute  for  the  Septuagint  and  appeal 
to  with  confidence,  when  discussing  with  Christians  the 
question  of  the  Messiahship.  "  From  no  honest  motive 
did  he,  "  sa3S  Epiphanius, '  "engage  in  this  enterprise; 
his  object  was  to  falsify  certain  texts  of  the  Scriptures, 
by  impugning  the  seventy  interpreters,  in  order  to  mis- 
represent the  passages  contained  in  the  Old  Testament 
reg"ardin2r  Christ."  Two  other  Greek  translations,  writ- 
ten  from  other  motives,  appeared  soon  afterwards  :  one 
less  literal,  but  more  akin  than  Aquila's  to  the  Septua- 
gint ;  its  author  was  Theodotion ;  the  other  rather  a 
paraphrase  than  a  version  by  Symmachus.  The  religious 
record  of  both  these  interpreters  resembled  somewhat 
that  of  Aquila.  Besides  these  three,  there  were  in  early 
Christian  times  three  other  Greek  versions  from  the  He- 
brew, but  their  authors  are  unknown,  and  there  mav 
have  been  others,  of  which  no  record  remains.  The 
memory  of  these  six,  however,  has  been  preserved  by 
the  use  which  Origen  made  of  them,  when  preparing  his 
Hexaplar  edition  of  the  Septuagint. 

Aquila,  Theodotion,  and  Symmachus  most  probablv 
omitted  several,  but  certainly  not  all  of  the  deutero 
Scriptures,  as  Franzelin  "  has  shown.  Of  the  versions 
prepared  b^'  these  three  interpreters,  that  of  Aquila, 
as  it  was  intended  to  fill  a  want  felt  by  the  Jews  from 
the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  generally  super- 
seded the  use  of  the  Septuagint  among  them.  So  that, 
though  the  appearance  of  the  latter  had  been  hailed 
wnth  joy  in  the  beginning,  and  even  annually  celebrated, 
according  to  Philo,  '  by  a  festival  at  Alexandria,  whose 
Jewish  residents,  with  manv  others,  as  if  to  venerate  the 
spot  where  it  had  been  written,  as  well  as  to  thank  God 
for  so  great  a  gift,  flocked  to  the  place  where  the  inter- 

'  De  Pond,  el  Mens.  c.  xv.  *JZ><f  Div.  Trad,  et  Scrip  p.  457. 

2  De  vita  .Morsis.  L.  2. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  137 

preters  dwelt  while  engaged  upon  it  ;  that  version  was 
at  last  so  detested,  especially  by  those  who  were  as 
zealous  for  the  tradition  of  the  elders  as  for  the  written 
law,  that  it  is  said  for  the  festival,  by  which  its  publi- 
cation had  been  honored,  a  fast  was  substituted  to  de- 
plore so  inauspicious  an  esent ;  and  the  very  day  on 
which  it  first  saw  the  light  was  considered  equally 
fatal  with  that  on  which,  by  the  criminal  command  of 
Jeroboam,  the  golden  calves  were  consecrated,  and  the 
heavens,  on  account  of  that  sacrilege,  shrouded  in  dark- 
ness for  three  days. ' 

In  fact,  when  the  Jewish  teachers  perceived,  as  they 
really  did  about  the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  or 
perhaps  even  sooner,  that  the  Christians  were  able  to 
prove  from  the  Septuagint  that  the  prophecies  referring 
to  the  Messiah  had  been  all  literally  fulfilled  in  the  Christ 
whom  the  chief  priests,  scribes,  and  ancients  a  generation 
or  two  before  had  crucified,  they  had  good  reason  to  be 
convinced,  that  the  possession  of  the  Scriptures  by  these 
fearless  adversaries  had  placed  themselves  at  a  great 
disadvantage.  And  if  so,  why  should  they  not  have 
profoundly  regretted  that  their  sacred  books,  instead  of 
being  kept,  as  at  first,  closely  locked  up  in  impenetrable 
Hebrew,  and  thus  placed  beyond  the  possible  reach  of 
all  outside  their  ow^n  narrow  circle,  had  been  at  last 
exposed  to  the  whole  world  in  vulgar  Greek  or  any 
other  living  language  whatever?  Thus  the  decided 
preference  given  by  the  Rabbins  to  Acquila's  Greek 
version  over  the  Septuagint  seems,  after  all,  to  have 
been  merely  the  selection  of  what  appeared  to  them  the 
less  of  two  evils  ;  and  one,  therefore,  to  be  tolerated  only 
so  long  as  it  was  impossible  to  remove  it. 

A  determined  effort  was,  therefore,  at  last  made  by  the 
Jewish  teachers  to  restrict  all  their  followers  to  the 
reading  (*f  the  Scriptures  in  Hebrew.     The  use  of  all 

1  Calmet,  Dissert  de  Vers.  Sept.  Inteip. 


138  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Greek  versions,  even  that  of  Aqiiila,  was  forbidden  un- 
der pain  of  grave  censures  and  dire  anathemas  ;  and 
every  one  was  required  in  the  synagogue  to  listen,  not 
only  as  usual  to  the  reading  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophe- 
cies, but  of  Mishnical  expositions  and  traditions,  and 
all  in  Hebrew.  After  the  return  from  Babylon,  when 
it  was  found  that  the  people  no  longer  understood 
Hebrew,  in  their  religious  meetings  the  lessons,  after 
being  read  in  Hebrew,  were  explained  in  Chaldee,  or 
such  other  language  as  they  understood.  The  attempt, 
therefore,  of  the  rabbinical  doctors  to  withdraw  from 
their  disciples  a  privilege  regarded  by  the  latter  as  not 
alone  important,  but  in  fact  indispensable  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  law,  caused  such  serious  disturbances,  that 
the  supreme  authority  of  the  state  was  compelled  to 
interfere  in  the  interest  of  public  order.  Therefore  in 
the  year  551,  during  the  reign  of  Justinian,  an  imperial 
decree  directed  '  that  the  Jews  should  be  allowed 
to  use  any  vernacular  version.  To  such  of  them  as 
understood  Greek,  the  Septuagint  in  that  decree  is  high- 
Iv  recommended,  as  being  superior  to  all  others  handed 
down  ;  not  only  on  account  of  the  evidently  divine  assist- 
ance by  which  the  interpreters,  though  separated  from 
each  other,  were  enabled  to  write  the  same  translation, 
but  because,  though  appointed  by  God  so  long  before, 
they,  being  enlightened  b}'  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  fore- 
saw that,  and  made  arrangements  by  which,  the  sacred 
books  should  be  handed  down  to  future  generations.  It 
is  also  asserted  that  "  all  use  it."  The  use  of  Aquila's 
version,  although  defective  in  so  far  as  it  differs  from 
the  Septuagint,  is  permitted.  But  the  reading  of  Mish- 
nical or  rabbinical  traditions,  which  are  merely  human 
compositions  destitute  of  any  divine  element,  is  strictly 
interdicted.  Whoever  should  attempt  to  nullify  the 
provisions  contained  in  this  law,  were  to  be  subjected  to 

1  Novella  146. 


Tlie  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament.  139 

corporal  punishment  and  confiscation  of  goods.  Hod}'  ' 
has  cited  on  the  same  subject  two  other  authorities, 
from  one  of  which  it  appears  simply  that  the  Jews  were 
permitted  to  read  in  the  synagogue  the  Septuagint, 
Aquila's  version,  or  versions  in  other  languages,  as  might 
be  found  necessary,  and  that  all  who  should  interfere 
with  the  exercise  of  this  privilege  were  to  be  punished 
by  confiscation  of  property."  This  statement  is  sub- 
stantially confirmed  by  the  other  authority  ;  but  it  makes 
no  mention  of  any  penalty,  and  interdicts  the  reading  of 
the  "  secondary  law  "  as  "  not  being  contained  in  the 
sacred  books."'  The  secondary  law  is,  no  doubt,  the 
rabbinical  traditions  proscribed  in  the  Novella. 

If  the  statement  of  the  Novella  declaring  that  "all 
use  it "  be  rightly  and  rigidly  interpreted,  it  would 
seem  that  the  reading  of  the  Septuagint  was  universally 
practised  by  the  Jews.  But  this  can  hardly  have  been 
the  case  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century.  Otherwise 
the  persistent  efforts  made  by  the  Rabbins,  during  the 
four  preceding  centuries,  to  substitute  Aquila's  version 
for  the  Septuagint  among  their  people  must  have  failed 
utterly.  This,  however,  is  hardly  conceivable.  The 
more  reasonable  supposition  is,  that,  the  Rabbins  hav- 
ing succeeded  in  greatly  curtailing  the  circulation  of  the 
Septuagint  among  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Jews,  next 
proposed  to  withdraw  from  them  even  Aquila's  version, 
or  any  other  copy  of  the  Scripture,  except  such  as  was 
contained  in  the  Hebrew  language,  a  scheme  against 
which  tumultuous  opposition  was  made  by  all  not  be- 
longing to  the  rabbinical  party.  While  endeavoring  to 
restore  order,  the  imperial  authority  availed  itself  of  the 
opportunity  thus  presented  to  reduce  the  influence  of 
the  Rabbins  by  legalizing  the  resistance  of  their  follow- 
ers, and  thus  entice  the  latter  to  adopt  as  a  standard  copy 

'  De  Bibl.  Text.,  236.  "^  Photius,  Nomocanon..  xii.  3. 

^  Const.  Ecchs.  Cot  lectio,  lib.  iii..  tit.  3.  Edicto  5. 


140  The  Canon  of  tlie  Old  Testament. 

of  the  Scripture  the  Septuagint,  which,  or  versions  of 
which,  generally  all  Christians  were  then  and  had  been  all 
along  using.  With  this  purpose  in  view,  the  Novella 
insists  on  the  great  superiority  of  the  Septuagint  ;  and 
the  stress  laid  on  this  point  clearly  indicates  that  the  ver- 
sion was  not  generally  circulating  among  the  Jews;  else, 
why  should  reasons  be  adduced  to  convince  them  of  its 
excellence?  Nevertheless,  it  is  evident  from  the  wa)'  in 
Avhich  it  is  referred  to,  that,  though  long  before  con- 
demned by  the  Rabbins,  it  was  still  read  by  some  of  their 
followers.  The  future,  however,  demonstrated  that  no 
imperial  decree  could  be  framed  that  would  perpetuate 
the  lingering  respect  of  even  the  latter  for  the  Septua- 
gint, or  induce  them  to  renounce  all  obedience  to  the 
behests  of  their  rabbinical  masters.  For  the  Rabbins 
triumphed  in  the  end  ;  and  ever  since,  the  solemn  reading 
of  the  Scriptures  in  the  Jewish  assemblies  has  been  con- 
ducted in  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  languages,'  according 
t(j  the  example  set  by  Esdras  the  Scribe.  But  the  ex- 
position, as  had  been  always  the  case,  was  made  in  the 
language  understood  by  those  in  attendance.'  At 
present,  however,  the  general  practice  is  to  read  the 
lessons  from  the  Pentateuch  and  Prophets  onlv  in  the 
Hebrew  and  vernacular,  whatever  that  vernacular  may 
happen  to  be. 

'  Piideaux,  Connex.,  Part  ii.,  42.  *  Kitto's  Cycl.,  Synagogue. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


The  existing  Jewish  Canon,  Modern  and  incom- 
plete, POSSESSED  NO  DOUBT  OF  RaBBINICAL  SANC- 
TION, BUT  NEVER  APPROVED  BY,  OR  SUBMITTED  TO  THE 

Tribunal  instituted   by   God  in   the  Old  Law, 

FOR   THE   purpose   OF    GUARDING    THE   INTEGRITY    OF 
His    WRITTEN    WORD,    AND  DISCRIMINATING   BETWEEN 

Human  and  Divine  compositions.      One  of  three 
Theories  discussed. 

With  the  final  rejection  of  the  Septuagint  by  the 
Jews,  the  history  of  that  version  among  them  was 
brou2-ht  to  a  ch:)se.  But  that  history  had  been  such, 
that  it  must  have  infiuenced  in  a  very  considerable  de- 
gree  the  action  of  the  Rabbins,  when  they  undertook  in 
their  own  way  to  solve  the  then  complicated  problem 
of  the  canon.  For,  hardly  had  the  conflict  between 
them  and  the  Christians  commenced,  when  they  discov- 
ered to  their  surprise,  that  the  Septuagint,  really  the 
Vulp-ate  of  the  time,  in  its  allusions  to  the  characteristics 
of  the  Messiah,  would  prove  a  formidable  weapon  in 
the  hands  of  their  intrepid  antagonists.  And  as  that  con- 
flict  extended  into  fresh  fields  of  controversy,  they 
became  convinced  at  last,  that  defeat  was  inevitable, 
unless  they  could  show  that  the  Greek  text,  to  which 
their  adversaries  appealed,  did  not  express  the  true 
sense  of  the  original ;  or  unless  they  could  contrive  to 
substitute  for  that  text  another  in  Greek,  specially  made 
in  their  interest,  and  so  literally  literal,  that  while  by 
reason  of  its  rigid  adherence  to  the  abstract  meaning  of 


141 


142  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

each  Hebrew  word,  regardless  of  the  shading  reflected 
from  the  context,  its  absolute  accuracy  could  not  be  de- 
nied, it  might  thus  at  last  win  its  way  to  the  favor  of  the 
Christians,  but  few  of  whom,  b)^  critical  inquiry,  would 
discover  that  in  it  the  spirit  and  scope  of  the  original 
had  been  obscured  or  lost.  With  this  purpose,  the 
proselyte  Aquila,  whose  thirst  for  revenge  on  those  b}' 
whom  he  had  been  excommunicated  needed  no  stimu- 
lant, was  encouraged  to  undertake  a  new  Greek  version. 
But  if  its  author  and  his  patrons  hoped  that  it  would 
supplant  the  Septuagint,  they  were  doomed  to  bitter 
disappointment.  For  the  work  of  the  sevent}^  interpre- 
ters long  held  its  ground,  even  among  the  Hellenistic 
Jews,  as  well  as  the  Christians,  as  it  still  does  among 
the  latter  in  the  East ;  while  copies  of  it,  as  they  are 
now,  were  found  in  the  hands  of  the  educated  classes 
throughout  the  West.  But  from  the  first,  the  version 
of  Aquila  secured  few  readers  outside  Graeco-Judaic 
circles,  and  seems  to  have  utterl}^  disappeared  as  a 
whole  about  the  time  of  St.  Jerome. 

Some  of  the  Fathers,  in  consequence  of  the  hostile  atti- 
tude assumed  by  the  Jews,  not  only  towards  the  Christian 
religion,  but  towards  the  Christian  Bible,  probably  not 
without  good  reason  charged  the  Rabbins  with  attempt- 
ing to  corrupt  the  Scriptures.  For,  though  it  cannot 
be  proved  that  the  purity  of  the  Hebrew  text  was  ever 
affected  by  any  wilful  act  of  theirs,  all  that  is  knoAvn  of 
their  feelings  towards  the  Septuagint  will  warrant  the 
statement,  that  they  availed  themselves  of  all  possible 
means  for  depreciating  and  adulterating  its  contents  ; 
and  that,  when  at  last  they  concluded  to  terminate  their 
own  inveterate  controversy  about  the  canon,  it  was  de- 
cided that  no  book  originally  written,  or  extant  then 
only  in  Greek,  should  be  placed  therein.  Greek  could 
expect  no  quarter  among  sages  by  whom,  "  Cursed  is 
he    that    eatheth    swine's    flesh    and    teaches    his    child 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstavicnt.  143 

Greek,"  was  considered  a  venerable  truism.  '  This 
insane  detestation  of  Greek  may  account  for  the  ab- 
sence of  Esther  from  the  collection  of  books  which 
Melito  found  among  the  Palestinian  Rabbins  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century."  Innumerable  manuscripts 
must  have  perished  in  the  ruin  and  desolation  which, 
near  the  end  of  the  preceding  century,  had  fallen  on 
their  unhapp}'  country.  Among  those  manuscripts  may 
have  been  copies  of  Esther  not  recovered  at  the  time 
of  Melito's  visit,  and  of  other  books  never  afterwards 
restored.  The  Rabbins  could,  indeed,  if  they  so  desired, 
have  had  a  Greek  copy  of  Esther ;  but  v/hat  Rabbin 
then  would  have  been  guilty  of  such  impiety  as  the 
possession  of  that  book  would  imply.  A  Hebrew 
copy  of  the  book  afterwards  appeared  among  the  rab- 
binical collection,  but  in  so  mutilated  a  state,  as  to 
convince  the  reader,  after  examining  Esther's  Greek 
history,  that  that  copy  had  indeed  passed  through 
many  perils,  but  not  unscathed.  The  compass,  therefore, 
assigned  by  the  rabbinical  doctors  to  their  false  can- 
on was  determined,  to  a  certain  extent,  b}-  their  in- 
veterate antipathy  to  the  Greek  language.  But  another 
cause  which  contributed  to  make  that  canon  what  it  is, 
was  the  following  :  The  true  canon,  as  fixed  long  before, 
either  practically  or  formally,  by  the  High  Priest,  when 
he  in  either  way  approved  the  collection  belonging  to 
the  Alexandrine  version,  had  become  unsettled  or  un- 
certain through  the  disregard  of  the  constitutional 
method  prescribed  for  his  appointment,  as  well  as 
through  the  usurpation  of  his  spiritual  authority  by  a 
class  of  men,  whose  true  position  was,  and  always  had 
been,  subordinate  to  that  occupied  b}'  him,  not  only  in 
the  Temple,  but  in  the  tribunal  where  all  questions  relat- 

'  Milman.  Hist  of  the  Jews,  iii.  83. 

^  Omission  of  Esther  from  the  Jewish  canon,  in  th*e  time  of  Mileto,  satis- 
factorily accounted  for  in  ch.  xii. 


144  ^^'^^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

ing  to  religion,  its  rites,  its  doctrines,  and  its  sacred  books 
were  considered  and  decided.  If,  therefore,  as  it  is  al- 
leged, the  rabbinical  canon,  on  account  of  doubts 
involving  Ezechiel,  Esther,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and 
Canticles,  was  not  considered  to  be  closed  in  the  first 
century  before,  and  the  first  century  after  Christ, '  that 
was  just  what  was  to  be  expected.  And  if  the  Rabbins, 
after  ages  spent  in  doubting,  debating,  discussing,  argu- 
ing, and  wrangling  about  the  matter,  at  last  agreed  on  a 
canon  which  certainly  was  at  variance  with  the  uniform 
practice  of  Palestinians  and  Hellenists  up  to  the  time 
of  Herod  the  Great,  nothing  else  under  the  circumstanc- 
es was  to  be  looked  for. 

The  rabbinical  writers  woidd  have  us  believe,  that 
their  canon,  from  the  time  of  Esdras  and  Nehemias,  was 
always  what  it  is  at  present.  But  that  this  is  not  so,  is 
proved  by  the  toleration,  not  to  say  approbation,  which 
the  Septuagint  with  all  its  contents  enjoyed  even  in 
Jerusalem,  and  by  the  constant  sanction  which  that 
version  received  from  the  Hellenists  for  over  three 
hundred  years.  The  rabbinical  statement  is  further 
shown  to  be  utterly  unfounded  by  the  following  plain 
facts  already  stated  in  preceding  chapter.  In  the  sec- 
ond centur}^  after  Christ,  Melito  could  not  find  Esther  in 
the  Hebrew  copies  of  the  Scripture,  which  he  examined 
in  Palestine.  But  in  the  third  centur}',  Origen  was  able 
to  say,  that  the  Hebrew  Bible  had  been  enlarged  by  the 
admission  of  Esther,  and  the  addition  of  Baruch.  This 
latter  book  was  still  found  on  the  Hebrew  canon  about 
330,  when  Athanasius  copied  the  Jewish  catalogue. 
In  360  Hilary  reported,  that  Baruch  then  still  held  its 
place  on  the  rabbinical  canon.  And  in  374  Epiphanius, 
enumerating  the  books  belonging  to  that  canon,  included 
Baruch.  But  after  that  Baruch  is  no  longer  found 
among  the  number  of    Books  received    by    the   Jews 

'    Davidson.  F.ncvl.,  Britt.  vol.  v.   4. 


The  C  anon  oj  the  Old  Testamoit.  145 

For  on  the  catalogue  which  Jerome  wrote  6  years 
after,  that  is,  in  380,  Baruch  is  omitted,  and  the  rabbini- 
cal canon  is  reduced  to  the  dimensions  which  it  has 
maintained  from  that  time  up  to  the  present.  All  these 
Fathers,  as  is  implied  in  their  statements,  proposed,  in 
what  they  said  about  the  canon,  to  enumerate  simply 
those  books  which  the  Rabbins  of  their  time  had  placed 
upon  it.  If,  therefore,  it  were  said,  that  it  was  about  the 
beginning  of  the  last  quarter  in  the  fourth  century, 
probably  at  some  date  between  374  and  380,  that  the 
rabbinical  doctors  decided  at  last  to  lay  aside  their 
private  opinions,  and  unite  in  declaring  definitely  what 
books  were  to  be  included  in  their  bible,  and  received 
as  canonical  by  their  followers,  that  statement  would 
be  fully  warranted  by  all  the  facts  in  the  case. 

As  a  conclusion  to  all  of  the  preceding  remarks,  it 
may  be  observed  here,  that  the  principal  subject  con- 
sidered therein,  in  fact,  the  only  one  to  which  they  have 
been  addressed,  has  been  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  view  maintiained  in  these  pages  on  that  sub- 
ject, as  well  as  the  reasons  for  holding  it,  are  by  this 
time  sufficiently  clear.  If  that  view,  which  is  compara- 
tively a  modern  speculation,  if  not  a  novelty,  be  dignified: 
by  the  name  of  a  theory,  then,  in  order  to  proceed 
systematically,  it  ought  to  be  observed  at  this  point,  that 
there  are  principally  three  other  theories  which  have 
been  proposed  for  solving  the  many  difficulties  con- 
nected with  the  question  before  us,  and  which  have 
come  down  to  us  with  all  the  prestige  which  an  exist-, 
ence  of  several  centuries  and  the  advocacy  of  many 
eminent  Christian  critics  could  impart.  One  of  these 
theories  (for,  though  all  of  them  have  already  been 
noticed,  here  it  is  proper  to  dismiss  them  finall}-)  is  that 
which  is  generally  held  by  Protestants  ;  most  of  whom 
contend  that  their  canon,  that  is  the  Hebrew  canon, 
rather  the   rabbinical  canon,  for  it  is  it  they  adopted, 


146  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

was  the  work  of  Esdras  the  Scribe  and  the  men  of  the 
great  Sanhedrim,  the  last  of  whom,  Simon  the  Just,  died 
in  292.  The  manner  in  which  the  advocates  of  this 
theory  express  themselves  would  induce  a  credulous 
reader  to  suppose,  that  not  the  slightest  dissent  from 
this  view  has  ever  been  manifested  among  Protestant 
writers.  Yet  from  the  first  moment  when  a  Protestant 
appeared,  not  an  age  has  passed  without  recording 
numerous  and  vehement  protests  from  Protestant  writers 
against  it.  Even  Luther's  allusions  to  some  of  the  books 
on  the  canon  of  the  Old  as  well  as  of  the  New  Testament 
are  known  to  be  so  contemptuous,  intemperate,  and 
irreverent,  that  it  is  evident  he  refused  to  be  bound 
by  that  canon.  The  man  who  scrupled  not  to  say, 
"  The  Book  of  Esther  I  toss  into  the  Elbe,"  '  could  nor 
have  held  that  book  to  be  divine,  nor  the  canon  that 
contained  it  entitled  to  any  respect.  And  at  this  day 
there  are  many  distinguished  Protestants  for  whose 
religious  creed  Luther  is  responsible,  but  who  think  no 
more  of  several  books  on  the  rabbinical  canon  than  he 
did  of  Esther.  "^  And  no  wonder ;  that  canon,  as  appears 
from  the  preceding  pages,  is  open  to  so  many  grave, 
rather  insuperable  objections  throughout,  especially 
that  part  of  its  history  extending  from  the  first  to  the 
fourth  Christian  century,  that  to  believe  it  contains 
now,  and  always  did  contain,  since  the  generation  to 
which  Esdras  belonged,  all  those  divine  writings  which 
from  the  time  of  Moses  to  that  of  Christ  have  es- 
caped the  ravages  of  time,  or  that  it  contained  always 
neither  more  nor  less  than  it  contains  now,  requires  a 
degree  of  confidence  in  the  honesty  and  competence  of 
the  custodians  from  whom  Protestants  received  it  to 
which  those  custodians  are  entitled  neither  by  the  ac- 

'  Kitto's  Cy^/.,  Esther. 

*  Of  Esther,  as  it  appears  in  the  rabbinical  canon, Whiston  says:  "No  relii^ious 
Jews  could  well  be  the  authors  of  it."  Note  on  Jos.  Anliq.,  B.  xi.   c.  vi.  ^  13. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  I'cstaincni.  147 

count  they  have  given  of  it,  nor  by  the  usurped  relations 
into   which  they   obtruded  themselves  when  they   laid 
their  sacrilegious  hands  on  God's  written  word.    Besides, 
before  the  theory  in  question  is  accepted,  he  who  would 
do  so  must  be  prepared  to  believe,  like  all  others  who  have 
adopted  that  theory  :    first,  that  it  was  the  Septuagint, 
with  all  belonging  to  it,  and  not  the  Hebrew  with  its 
limited  and   vacillating  canon,  which  the  Apostles  de- 
livered to  the  first  churches.     Second,  that  that  same 
Septuagint,  or  versions  of  it,  with  its  unmutilated  canon, 
has  ever  since  circulated  throughout  the  East,  as  it  did 
throughout  the  West  until  the  sixth  century.     Third, 
that  even   when  it  was  superseded  in  the  West   by  a 
Latin  translation  of  the  Hebrew,  that  translation,  as  it 
circulated  throughout  the   West,   like  the  Septuagint, 
has  always  contained  the  deutero  books.     Fourth,  that 
out  of  either,   without  any  distinction   between  proto 
and   deutero   books,    Missals,    Breviaries,  Lectionaries, 
Rituals,  Sacramentaries,  etc.,   were  formed,   and    texts 
quoted  for  the  instruction  of  the  faithful.     Yet,  fifth,  he 
must  maintain  that  all  this  was  wrong,  the  source  from 
which  these  extracts  were  made  being  polluted  by  the 
admixture  of   what  he  calls  apocryphal  books,    which 
even  supphed  some  of  the  extracts  in  question;  though 
the  source  itself,  while  containing  these  books,  has  been 
venerated  for  ages  by  the  whole  Church,  and,  so  far  as 
can  be  now  known,  actually  consecrated  by  Apostolical 
sanction.     Can  any  intelligent  Protestant  believe  this  ? 
Yet  he  must  do  so,  so  long  as  he  insists  that  his  canon 
is  right,  and  the  Catholic  canon  wrong. 


y 


CHAPTER  X. 


Another  Theory  examined. 

Another  theory,  of  which  the  late  Professor  Ubaldi  is 
the  most  recent  advocate,'  is,  that  neither  the  Palestinians 
nor  the  Hellenists  had  any  other  canon  besides  the 
Esdrine ;  but  that  that  canon  was  left  open,  and  after- 
wards enlarged,  when  by  the  authority  of  Christ  and 
His  apostles  the  deutero  books  contained  in  the  Septua- 
gint  were  added  to  it.  This  theory  necessarily  supposes 
that  there  was  an  Esdrine  canon,  that  is,  a  catalogue  of 
books  approved  as  divine  by  Esdras  and  others  soon 
after  the  return  from  Babylon;  and  its  advocates  contend, 
that  that  catalogue  was  the  only  one  received  as  author- 
itative by  the  Jews  up  to  and  since  the  time  of  Christ. 
In  these  pages  it  has  been  argued  already,  that  the 
formation  of  the  Jewish  canon  was  part  of  the  duties 
with  which  the  High  Priest  was  charged,  and  that  he, 
not  Esdras,  was  to  be  regarded  as  the  author  of  the 
canon.  It  is  not,  therefore,  necessarv  to  repeat  here  the 
reasons  for  which  that  position  has  been  taken.  That 
other  part  of  the  theory  now  under  discussion,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  Jews,  whether  inside  or  outside 
Palestine,  never  had  since  the  time  of  Esdras  but  one 
canon,  that  canon  being  the  same  Avhich  they  have  at 
present,  remains  to  be  considered.  The  reader,  there- 
fore, besides  being  asked  to  subscribe  to  the  claims 
urged  on  behalf  of  Esdras,  is  expected  to  believe  that 
the   present    rabbinical  canon    alone    has    been    always 

'   Inirod.  in  S.  Script.,  vol.  II.,  Thesis  liii. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  149 

followed  by  all  Jews  throughout  the  world.  But  how 
can  he  do  so,  knowing-  as  he  does,  that  the  book  of 
Esther  was  at  one  time  not  on  that  canon,  and  that 
Baruch,  though  generally  omitted  in  it,  is  known  to  have 
once  been  included  in  it  ?  Besides,  he  is  more  likely  to 
be  puzzled  than  convinced,  if  he  contrast  the  prop- 
ositions he  is  urged  to  adopt  with  the  statements  of  its 
defenders,  when  as  disinterested  judges,  not  as  ardent 
advocates,  they  pass  upon  the  merits  of  the  "Alexandrine 
version,"  which,  says  one '  of  them  "  although  not  prop- 
erly inspired,  was  nevertheless  not  made  without  the 
special  providence  and  counsel  of  God,"  and  "  hardly 
had  it  appeared,  when  it  was  immediately  received  by 
the  Jews,  and  employed  by  them  publicly  and  privately  ; 
nor  did  it  remain  within  the  limits  of  one  country,  for  it 
was  introduced  to  almost  all  countries  where  there  were 
Jews,  or  where  the  Greek  language  was  understood. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  Palestinians  had  less 
veneration  for  the  LXX,  as  appears  from  Flavins  Josephus 
and  the  hagiographists  of  the  New  Testament."  ' 

Such,  in  general,  are  the  unbiassed  sentiments  of  those 
who  maintain  that  from  the  time  of  Esdras  the  Jews 
have  had  no  canon  but  that  of  which  he  is  the  reputed 
author.  Nevertheless,  it  does  not  follow,  so  we  are 
told  by  these  same  critics,  that  to  express  such  senti- 
ments IS  inconsistent  with  the  opinion  which  they  de- 
fend, as  the  Septuagint  might  well  be  all  that  they  say 
it  is,  without  the  Jews  ever  having  adopted  its  canon. 
Be  it  so,  provided  it  be  first  proved  that  the  Alexandrine 
version  contained  no  other  books  besides  those  now 
found  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  But  this  is  not  possible. 
On  the  contrary,  it  can  be  easily  shown,  that,  as  far  back 
as  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  era,  and  probably  long  be- 
fore it,  the  contents  of  that  version  were  as  ample  as 

'    Ubaldi.  Introd.  in  S.  Script.,  Vol.  I..  Thesis  xxvii.,  pp.  551.  552. 
-  Ibid.  557. 


1 50  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

they  are  now,  embracing,  as  they  do  still,  several  books 
not  found  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

Take  for  example  the  oldest  Greek  copies  that  are 
still  extant,  the  Vatican,  the  Sinaitic,  the  Alexandrine, 
and  the  Parisian,  and  see  what  is  implied  by  their  con- 
tents.    The  Vatican,  so  called  because  preserved  in  the 
Vatican  library  at  Rome,  is  assigned  to  the  beginning  or 
middle  of  the  fourth  century.     The  Sinaitic,  which  de- 
rives its  name  from   Mount  Sinai,  on  which  stands  the 
monastery  where  it  was  found,  is  supposed  to  be  almost 
if  not  fully  coeval  with  the  Vatican,  and  was  brought  to 
St.  Petersburg,  where  it  still  remains.     The  iVlexandrine 
is  so  named,  because  written  at  Alexandria;  it  probably 
belongs  to  the   fifth  centur}^  and   is  preserved  in   the 
British  Museum.     The  Parisian  is  deposited  in  the  na- 
tional library  at  Paris,  and  is  known  as  Codex  Epliremi 
rescriptns — Ephrem's  rescript  or  palimpsest — because  in 
it  the  works  of  S.  Ephrem   had   been  written   over  the 
original,  which  contained  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
books,  only  a  few  fragments  of  which  have  been  restored, 
in  the  attempt  made  to  remove  what  had   been  written 
over  them  ;  the  manuscript  is  supposed  to  date  from  the 
fifth  or  sixth  century.' 

Now,  all  these  codices,  although  more  or  less  mutilated, 
exhibit  unmistakable  traces  of  the  deutero  books.  In 
fact,  these  books  in  all  of  these  manuscripts  are  found 
not  added  at  the  end,  nor  prefixed  to  the  beginning,  nor 
intruded  all  together  between  some  two  proto  books, 
but  inserted,  some  here,  some  there,  between  the  other 
books.  Thus  the  Vatican  has  Judith  and  Tobias,  be- 
tween Esther  and  Osee,  Wisdom  and  Eecksiasticiis  be- 
tween Job  and  Esther,  and  Barucli  between  Jeremias 
and  Lamentations  ;  the  two  books  of  MacJiabees,  how- 
ever, as  well  as  the  greater  parts  of  Genesis  with  sev- 
eral books  of  the  New  Testament,  are  now  wanting  in 

'  For  contents  of  each  Codex  see  Appendix. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old   Tistauhnt.  151 

it.  The  Sinaitic  is  also  characterized  by  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  deutero  amonj^  the  proto  books.  The  Alex- 
andrine has  Dariich,  although  not  mentioned  in  the  pre 
fixed  index,  between  Jeremias  and  Lamentations  ;  Tobias 
and  yudith  between  Esther  and  III.  Esdras  (apocryphal); 
then  MacJiabccs,  Psalms,  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes, 
Canticles,  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasficus.  The  Parisian  has, 
among  fragments  of  some  proto  books,  those  of  Wis- 
dam  and  Ecclesiasticus  after  what  remains  of  Canticles. 
In  other  fragmentary  codices  all  the  deutero  books,  or 
at  least  Tobias  and  Judith,  and  very  often  MacJiabccs, 
mutilated  or  otherwise,  are  intermingled  with  the  proto 
books,  Baruch  being  joined  to  Jeremias.  But  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  Vatican,  Alexandrian,  and  Sinaitic 
have  III.  Esdras,  which  in  them  is  marked  I.  Esdras, 
and  that  the  Alexandrian  and  Sinaitic,  besides  I.  and  II. 
Machabees,  have  III.  and  IV.  Machabees.  These  apo- 
cryphal books,  although  some  of  them  were  regarded 
with  favor  by  a  few  Fathers,  were  never  publicly  read 
in  the  Church.  But  as  the}^  came  down  from  a  remote 
antiquity,  contained  nothing  absolutely  objectionable, 
and  were  withal  of  some  value,  they  were  probably  al- 
lowed a  place  in  some  cjodices,  as  the  best  way  of  con- 
sulting for  their  preservation — the  very  reason  why  the 
Church  has  permitted  the  Prayer  of  Manasses  and  III. 
and  IV.  Esdras  to  be  retained  in  many  copies  of  the 
Vulgate. 

The  same  intermixture  of  deutero  and  proto  books 
exists  in  all  the  ancient  versions  derived  from  the  Sep- 
tuagint ;  the  Ethiopic,and  no  doubt  the  Gothic,  of  which 
latter  but  a  few  fragments  remain,  and  both  of  the  fourth 
century  ;  the  Armenian,  of  the  fifth  century  ;  the  Sy- 
riac  Hexaplar  of  the  Seventh  century,  and  the  Slavonic, 
of  the  ninth.'     It  is  therefore  certain,  that  as  at  present, 

'  Catalogues  belonging  to  most  of  these  versions  may  be  seen  in  Hody,  de 
BiH.   Text.,  p.  650.— 2. 


152  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Test  anient. 

the  Septuagint,  whether  in  its  original  Greek  dress,  or 
as  it  appeared  in  the  various  versions  prepared  for 
Christian  nations  speaking  other  dialects,  has  always 
contained  the  deiitero  books  distributed  among  the  pro- 
to,  as  far  back  as  the  fourth  century,  and,  according  to  in- 
contestable testimony,  even  farther.back  than  that.  For 
the  vctus  Itala,  or  old  Latin  Vulgate,  another  version  of 
the  Septuagint,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  *  coeval,  it  may  be 
said,  with  the  Christian  Church,  also  exhibited  this  inter- 
mixture of  proto  and  deutero  books  ;  a  clear  proof  that 
its  author,  as  well  as  its  readers,  placed  both  classes  of 
books  on  the  same  level,  in  point  of  authority.  This  re- 
mark applies  to  all  the  other  versions  ;  and  when  it  is  re- 
membered that  those  versions  were  prepared  not  only  for 
individuals,  but  for  the  churches  throughout  Christen- 
dom, it  will  be  understood  how  much  is  implied  in  that 
fact. 

But  no  Christian  interpreter,  working  in  the  interest 
of  a  Christian  community,  would  have  dared  to  add  to 
his  version  books  not  found  in  the  original,  or  mix  such 
books  among  those  of  which  he  professed  to  give  a 
Latin  translation.  For  that  original  was  well  known 
and  widely  circulated  among  those  ior  whose  use  his 
own  work  was  intended.  In  the  catalogues  of  the  ver- 
sions refen-ed  to  above,  so  far  as  known,  the  order  of  the 
books  from  Genesis  to  the  end  of  Kings  is  the  same. 
But  from  Kings  to  the  end  of  the  collection  the  order  is 
varied.  This  difference  may  have  arisen  from  the  fact, 
that,  while  the  order  in  which  the  books  from  Genesis 
to  Kings  appeared,  was  well  known,  the  order  in  which 
the  other  were  written  was  not  ascertained.  Besides, 
variations  in  Greek  copies,  on  which  the  translators 
worked,  may  have  led  to  the  same  result. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  at  the  moment  when  the  Old 
Testament  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Church,  or 

'  Supra,  p.  79,  &c. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  153 

rather  she  was  sufficiently  organized  to  take  charge  o( 
it ;  the  Septuagint  had  the  same  characteristics  which  it 
presents  to-day — in  addition  to  the  books  on  the  present 
Hebrew  canon  several  more,  and  these  indiscriminatel}- 
mixed  among  the  others.  This  was  at  the  time  of  the 
apostles.  Now,  by  whom  were  these  books  added  to 
the  canon,  for  added  they  were  then,  for  the  first  time, 
if  the  theor}'  now  on  its  trial  be  correct  ?  "  Why  !  by  the 
apostles,"  answer  the  advocates  of  that  theory.  Impossi- 
ble ;  for,  while  we  know  that  the  apostles  were  called 
before  the  counsel,  reprimanded,  scourged,  and  impris- 
oned, put  to  death  on  various  pretexts  by  the  Jews,  we 
have  yet  to  learn  from  anything  contained  in  the  history 
of  the  time,  that  they  were  ever  accused  by  the  Jews  of 
adding  profane  and  foreign  compositions  to  the  collec- 
tion of  divine  literature,  or  of  attempting  to  substitute 
for  the  then  authorized  canon  another  of  their  own  crea- 
tion. Besides,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment not  a  word  is  written  warranting  a  suspicion  that 
between  our  Lord  and  his  apostles  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  Jews  on  the  other,  there  was  any  difference  of  opin- 
ion about  the  canon.  So  far  as  known,  both  parties 
followed  the  same  canon.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  to 
show  the  contrary,  but  much,  very  much,  to  refute  it. 
And  when  the  proper  time  comes  for  equipping  the 
Church  with  a  true  and  complete  copy  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  apostles,  as  the  defenders  of  the  theory  before 
us  admit,  set  the  seal  of  their  sanction  on  the  Alexan- 
drine canon,  without  a  word  of  complaint  or  protest  from 
any  sect  or  party'among  the  Jews.  Is  it  not  clear,  that 
that  canon  was  the  one,  which  the  Jews  themselves 
were  then  and  had  been  following,  for  a  long  time  be- 
fore ? 

Finally,  let  us  now  note  briefly  the  course  of  events  in 
the  Christian  Church  at  Jerusalem,  from  the  time  when 
St.  James,  the  first  of  the  fifteen  Bishops  who  succeeded 


154  ^/^^'  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstainoit. 

him  in  that  See,  all  being  of  the  circumcision,  '  was  put 
to  death,  until  about  the  middle  ot  the  second  century  ; 
when  we  learn  for  the  first  time,  through  Justin  Martyr, 
that  the  Jews  had  repudiated  some  of  the  scriptures  con- 
tained in  the  Alexandrine  version.  These  events  have 
something  to  do  \\\\\\  the  question  before  us,  and  there- 
fore deserve  attention.  In  the  year  62  James  suffered 
martyrdom  by  order  of  the  High  Priest  Ananus  and  the 
Sanhedrim."  He  was  succeeded  '"  by  S.  Simeon,  probably 
a  younger  uterine  brother,  who,  with  his  flock,  imme- 
diately before  the  commencement  of  the  siege,  withdrew 
from  the  city  to  Pella,  a  town  beyond  the  Jordan.* 
After  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  a  Roman 
governor  was  established  in  the  place. ^  Meantime  man}^ 
of  the  Jews,  profoundly  impressed  with  the  misfortunes 
of  their  country,  convinced  that  their  cause  as  a  people 
was  hopeless,  and  believing,  perhaps,  that  the  Mosaic 
dispensation  was  in  the  order  of  Providence  to  be  super- 
seded bv  Christianity,  had  attached  themselves  to  the 
flock  of  Simeon.  The  country  seems  to  have  been 
still  densely  populated,  and  the  veneration  which  they 
cherished  for  the  site  of  the  ruined  city,  as  well  as  the 
prospect  of  gain  by  supplying  the  wants  of  the  garrison 
stationed  there,  soon  attracted  to  it  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  Jews,  too  powerless,  however,  to  excite  in  the 
minds  of  their  haughty  conquerors  any  other  feeling  than 
that  of  contempt.  Among  those  who  returned  were  St. 
Simeon  and  his  flock,  now  greatly  increased,  but,  as  the 
future  proved,  embracing  elements  which  boded  no 
good  to  the  cause  of  the  infant  Church. 

Still,  amidst  much  opposition  and  persecution,  there 
was  reason  to  rejoice  on  account  of  the  large  number  of 
apparently  sincere  converts  who  had  recently  professed 

'  Euseb.,  Hist.,  B.  iv.,  c.  5. 

'  Ibid.,  B.  ii.,  c.  23;  Jos.,  Antiq.,  B.  xx.,  c.  ix.,  ^  i. 

8  Euseb.,  Hist,,  B.  iii.,  c.  xi.  ^  Ibid.,  c.  v. 

*  Joseph.,  Wars,  B.  vii.,  c.  i.,  §  i. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testauient.  155 

their  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  Christianity.  But  in 
a  few  years  it  became  evident  that  many  among  them, 
though  outwardly  conforming  to  the  Gospel,  insisted 
that  the  law  of  Moses  was  still  in  force,  while  others 
were  infatuated  with  the  system  developed  by  Philo  of 
Alexandria  out  of  the  Greek  Philosophy,  and  not  a  few 
adhered  to  the  peculiar  views  advocated  by  surviving 
Jewish  sects,  as  the  Essenes,  Nazarites,  Pharisees,  etc., 
the  number  of  these  being  increased  by  others  of  more 
recent  origin,  Ebionites,  Elkessaites,  Nicolaites,  etc., — 
all  these  comprising  in  a  great  measure  that  formidable, 
seething  mass  known  as  Judaizing  Christians,  among 
whom  Thebutis,  a  disappointed  aspirant  to  the  succes- 
sion on  the  martyrdom  of  St.  James,  .was  the  most  prom- 
inent, restless,  and  of  course  dissatisfied  spirit. 

An  order  had  already  been  made  by  Vespasian  and 
Domitian  that  all  of  the  race  of  David  should  be  put  to 
death.  It  was  renewed  by  Trajan  ;  and  Simeon,  after 
having  for  some  time  evaded  the  vigilance  of  the  perse- 
cutors, was  at  last  betrayed  into  their  hands  by  the 
Judaizing  Christians,  whose  vengeance  had  probably 
been  stimulated  by  his  zeal  against  the  false  teachers  who 
endeavored  to  corrupt  the  faith  of  his  flock.  The  ven- 
erable Bishop,  after  being  condemned  as  a  descendant  of 
David,  and  above  all  as  a  Christian,  was  in  107  or  1 16 
subjected  to  horrible  tortures,  which  he  bore  with  the 
greatest  constancy.'  Then  being  nailed  to  a  cross,  he 
expired  thereon,  confessing  Christ  with  his  last  breath. 
While  he  lived,  his  influence  as  that  of  one  who  had  seen 
the  Lord,  his  authority  as  an  apostle,  and  his  vigilance 
as  a  pastor  succeeded  to  a  great  extent  in  defeating  the 
attempts  which  renegade  Christians,  whether  Jews  or 
pagans  originally,  made  to  corrupt  the  creed  which  he 

'  See  for  all  this  Butler's  Lives  of  Saints,  Feb.  l8  ;  Alzog,  Universal  Church 
History;  Pabischand  Byrne,  vol.  i.,  c.  5;  Hermion,  Hist,  de  PEglise,  voL  i.,  p. 
127;  Rohrbacher,  Hist.  Je  fEglise,  vol.  v.,  p.  9,  etc. 


156  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

taught.  But  his  successor  Justus,  possessed  of  less 
prestige,  was  not  so  well  qualified  for  a  position  sur- 
rounded with  such  peculiar  difficulties.  And  Palestine 
then  became,  and  for  long  after  remained  a  hot-bed  of 
heresies  a  parallel  for  which  will  be  sought  in  vain  un- 
til the  sixteenth  century  is  reached. 

With  the  names  of  these  heresies,  their  principles  or 
their  founders,  we  have  nothing  to  do.  But  it  is  wor- 
thy of  remark  that,  while  the  professors  of  these  heresies 
were  constantly  broaching  new  errors,  denying  less  or 
more  of  the  Christian  creed,  counterfeiting  or  repudiat- 
ing one  or  other  part  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  they 
neither  assailed  nor  repudiated  as  such  an}'  of  the  deu- 
tero  books.  Thus  Simon  Magus,  followed  by  the 
Marcionites  and  Manicheans,  held  that  the  Law  was 
framed,  not  by  God,  but  by  a  certain  malignant  intelli- 
gence. He  also  taught  that  the  prophets  were  inspired, 
not  by  God,  but  by  various  intelligences,  and  that  all 
who  believed  the  Old  Testament  would  incur  death. 
Saturninus  said  that  the  prophecies  were  uttered  part- 
ly by  angels,  v/ho  made  the  world,  and  partly  by  Satan. 
Basilides  declared  that  the  prophecies  were  made  by 
angels,  but  the  law  b)'  the  prince  of  the  Jews.  The 
followers  of  Cerinthus  repudiated  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles and  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  The  Ebionites  also 
rejected  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  and  all  the  Gospels 
except  that  of  St.  Matthew.  All  these  impious  theories, 
remember,  were  broached  about  or  soon  before  the  end  of 
the  first  century,  and  if  the  inquiry  be  pushed  only  a  little 
farther  in  the  direction  of  the  present,  it  will  be  found 
that  the  disciples  of  these  or  other  early  heretics  con- 
demned the  Psalms  as  a  collection  of  vulgar  lyrics,  and, 
like  some  of  the  Rabbins  in  the  first  century,  excluded 
Ecclesiastes  and  Canticles  from  the  canon." 

•  The  ancient  authorities  on  the  subject  are  principally  the  Eccl.  Hist,  of 
Eusebius,  the  Panarium  of  Epiphanius,  and  the  Liber  de  Hares.,  of  Philas- 


The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament.  157 

Now  it  is  for  those  who  contend  that  the  deutero 
b(X)ks  were  never  on  the  Jewish  canon  to  say  how  it 
happened  that,  while  so  many  books  belonging  to  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  were  condemned  by  these 
early  heretics,  nothing  unfavorable  was  alleged  by  them 
regarding  the  deutero  books.  It  will  not  do  to  say 
that  they  were  ignorant  of  their  existence,  or  that,  beings 
ruled  out  of  the  canon  by  all,  nobody  thought  it  worth 
while  to  notice  or  protest  against  them.  For  many 
of  those  heretics,  being  familiar  with  Greek,  must  have 
known  that  the.y  were  contained  in  the  Septuagint; 
and  that,  while  they  themselves  were  blaspheming 
against  this  or  that  proto  book,  the  author  of  the  Epistle 
of  Barnabas,  and  Clement  of  R(^me  in  his  letters  to  the 
Corinthians,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  in  his  woi"ks  as 
well  as  other  Fathers  m  their  writings,  were  appealing 
to  the  authority  of  the  deutero  books,  as  if  it  were  equal 
to  that  of  the  proto.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  no  ex- 
planation of  the  course  pursued  by  these  early  heretics 
regarding  the  Scriptures  is  satisfactory,  that  does  not 
include  the  deutero  among  the  canonical  books.  Of 
course,  when  a  heretic  is  met  with  who  rejected  the 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  deutero  books  also  were  covered  by  the  impious  con- 
demnation ;  but  when,  as  was  generally  the  case,  the 
condemnation  extended  only  to  certain  specified  proto 
books,  others  as  well  as  the  deutero  being  always,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  excepted,  the  conclusion  must  be,  that 
when  among  these  heretics  the  existence  of  a  canon 
was  admitted  at  all,  the  deutero  books  were  considered 
a  part  of  it.  But  from  whom  did  they  receive  a  canon  of 
Scripture  ?  From  the  Jews,  or  the  Christian  Church, 
is  the  only  answer.  Then,  if  from  the  Jews,  the  theory 
now  under  discussion  must  be  abandoned.     If  from  the 

trius.    Among  the  modern  works  on  the  subject  are  Liguori's  Hist,  of  Heresies;- 
Eccl.  Hist,  of  Noel  .\lexander. 


■158  The  Canon  of  the  Old  TcstiXiHiut. 

Christian  Church,  then  it  must  be  remembered,  that 
many  of  these  heretics  were  originally  Jews;  but  how 
did  it  happen  that  after  apostatizing  from  Christianity, 
while  opposing  what  they  considered  its  errors  and 
defects,  they  never  charged  it  with  having  placed 
on  the  canon  several  books  entitled  to  no  such  distinc- 
tion ?  The  only  conceivable  answer  to  this  question  is, 
as  it  seems,  that  these  renegade  Jews  had  found 
among  the  Christians  the  same  canon  which  they  them- 
selves had  followed  before  they,  whether  sincerely  or 
otherwise,  professed  their  belief  in  Christ  as  the  Messiah. 
That  the  Jews  before  and  at  the  time  of  our  Lord  had 
a  canon,  no  intelligent  Christian  can  deny.  But  that 
that  canon  contained  only  such  books  as  are  embraced 
in  the  present  Hebrew  Bible,  there  is  no  good  reason  for 
believing ;  on  the  other  hand,  there  are,  as  we  have  just 
seen,  sevei"al  weighty  considerations  which  render  it  ex- 
tremely probable  (indeed  it  might  be  said  all  but  cer- 
tain) that  the  only  canon  the  Jews  had,  from  the  time 
when  the  last  of  the  deutero  books  was  approved  by  the 
High  Priest  until  some  period  within  the  second  Chris- 
tian centur-}-,  comprised  not  only  every  one  of  the 
books  which  they  still  retain,  but  all  those  others  pre- 
served in  the  Septuagint  and  declared  canonical  by  the 
Council  of  Trent. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


A  Third  TiiiioRv  Reviewed. 

Besides  the  theories  just  discussed,  one  other,  which 
Hke  the  preceding  is  defended  by  some  Catholic  writers, 
remains  to  be  considered.  It  numbers  among  its  advo- 
cates several  distinguished  scholars,  the  latest  of  whom 
is  Rev.  Rudolph  Comely,  S.  J.,  Professor  in  the  Grego- 
rian University,  Rome,  and  the  author  of  a  learned  Intro- 
duction to  the  Sacred  Scripture.  According  to  this 
theory  '  there  were  among  the  Jews  two  canons  :  one,  the 
Palestinian  or  Esdrine  attributed  to  Esdras  and  Nehe- 
mias,  not  closed  until  the  time  of  the  apostles,  re- 
stricted to  Palestine,  and  until  closed  containing  only 
the  proto  books  ;  the  other,  the  Alexandrine  or  Hellen- 
istic, followed  outside  of  Palestine,  and  comprising  the 
deutero  as  well  as  the  proto  books.  So  far.  as  this 
theory  insists  on  the  existence  of  a  distinct  Pales- 
tinian canon,  embracing  none  but  the  proto  books, 
its  merits  have  been  so  fully  treated  in  connection  with 
the  preceding  theory,  that  any  further  remark  on  that 
subject  here  is  quite  unnecessary.  But  something  must 
be  said  in  relation  to  the  other  view  involved  in  it,  that 
the  Jews  had  at  the  same  time  two  canons,  the  Palestin- 
ian and  Alexandrian,  although  the  point  has  been  al- 
ready touched  upon  ^  when  it  was  shown  that,  while  the 
Hellenists  made  use  of  the  Septuagint,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence followed  the  Alexandrine  canon  alone,  they  en- 

'  Cornely's  Introd.  in  S.  Script.,  vol.  pp.  59  seq.,  50  seq.,  Parisiis,  1885. 
"^  Chapters  v.  &  vi. 

199 


i6o  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament . 

joyed  religious  communion  with  the  spiritual  rulers  at 
[erusalem,  and  were  treated  there  by  these  rulers,  as  if, 
so  far  as  religion  was  concerned,  they  differed  in  no  re" 
spect  from  their  Palestinian  brethren. 

Who,  therefore,  does  not  see,  that,  if  the  canon  of  the 
Hellenists  was  not  the  same  as  the  one  approved  at  Jeru- 
salem, they  differed  from  their  brethren  there  in  a  matter 
so  intimately  related  to  the  fundamentals  of  Judaism, 
that  they  must  have  been  considered  schismatics,  been 
excluded  from  the  temple,  and  denied  all  religious  fel- 
lowship by  the  High  Priest  and  his  council  ?  It  is  ad- 
mitted by  all  Biblical  scholars,  that  there  was  no  part  of 
their  religion  which  the  Jews  treated  with  more  profound 
veneration,  or  guarded  with  greater  care,  than  their 
holy  books.  Josephus'  remark  is  a  simple  statement  of  a 
well-known  fact,  when  he  says  that,  "  it  becomes  natural 
to  all  Jews,  immediately  and  from  their  very  birth,  to  es- 
teem these  books  to  contain  divine  doctrines,  and  to  per- 
sist in  them,  and,  if  occasion  be,  willingly  to  die  for  them. 
For  it  is  no  new  thing  for  our  captives,  many  of  them  in 
number,  and  frequently  in  time,  .to  be  seen  to  endure 
racks  and  death  of  all  kinds  upon  the  theatres,  that  they 
may  not  be  obliged  to  say  one  word  against  our  laws 
and  the  records  that  contain  them."'  Now,  this  would 
be  a  mendacious  boast,  and  the  jealous  vigilance  with 
which  the  Jews  are  universally  believed  to  have  preserved 
their  sacred  records  from  corruption  and  profanation 
would  be  nothing  more  than  an  idle  legend,  devised  for 
the  purpose  of  corroborating  the  rabbinical  romance, 
according  to  which  the  canon  was  the  work  of  EsdraS' 
and  not  the  result  of  the  authority  lodged  in  the  office  of 
the  High  Priest,  had  the  Hellenists  been  permitted,  as 
they  really  were,  to  parade  the  Septuagint  with  its  inter- 
mixture of  deutero  books  in  the  very  precincts  of  the 
temple  of  Jerusalem,  while  these  books  were  branded  as 

'   I.  Contra  Apion.,  8. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstaiiioit.  i6i 

unscriptural  by  the  supreme  spiritual  authority  of  that 
city.  But  confess  that  these  books  formed  part  of  the 
canon  for  the  Jews  everywhere,  and  this  glaring  anoma- 
ly disappears. 

But  in  reply  to  this  it  is  said  that,  if  notwithstanding 
the  positive  command  of  God  through  Moses,  the  erec- 
tion and  maintenance  of  the  temple  in  Egypt  by  and 
for  the  service  of  the  Jews  there  settled  was  tolerated, 
and  those  who  frequented  it  were  allowed  to  worship 
in  Jerusalem  and  treated  there  as  brethren,  might  not 
the  use  of  a  canon  different  from  that  approved  in 
Palestine  have  been  also  permitted  to  those  Egyptian 
Jews?  This  hypothetical  surmise  has  been  already  dis- 
posed of.'  It  is  therefore  not  necessary  to  say  anything 
more  on  the  subject  beyond  the  single  remark  that, 
since  the  Egyptian  temple  was  outside  the  territory 
covered  by  the  Mosaic  ordinance,  its  erection  was  not  a 
violation  of  that  ordinance,  especially  as  it  was  the  cre^ 
ation  of  an  actually  legitimate  High  Priest  and  was. 
intended  to  provide  for  the  spiritual  wants  of  an 
immense  multitude  of  Jews.  In  conclusion,  let  it  be 
remembered  that  the  worshippers  at  Leontopolis,  as  is, 
admitted  by  those  who  believe  in  the  theory  of  a  double 
canon,  used  not  only  there,  but  at  Jerusalem  with  the 
knowledge  and  consent  of  the  supreme  central  authority 
in  that  city,  a  copy  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  containing 
the  deutero  intermingled  with  the  proto  books,  that  is> 
the  Alexandrine  canon.  Then  say,  does  it  not  seem  to 
follow,  that  that  canon,  and  that  canon  alone,  had  at  the 
time-the  sanction  of  the  priestly  as  well  as  the  lay  ele- 
ment among  all  the  Jews,  whether  residing  inside  or 
outside  the  limits  of  Palestine  ? 

And  now  a  last  word  as  to  the  connection  which, Esdras 
the  Scribe  is  said  to  have  had  with  the  origin  of  the  He- 
brew canon.     It  is  evident  from  what  has  been  already 

'  Chapters  v.  &  vi. 


1 62  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstainoit. 

said  on  that  subject,  that,  though  the  rabbinical  tradition, 
which  attributes  the  canon  to  Esdras  as  its  principal 
author,  has  been  generally  credited  so  far  as  the  sub- 
stance of  that  tradition  is  concerned;  it  proves,  when 
confronted  with  the  Scriptures  and  the  uninspired 
works  of  Jewish  as  well  as  of  Christian  writers,  to  be  by 
no  means  satisfactor}'^;  and  is  in  fact  contradicted  by  the 
Hebrew  constitution  itself,  as  framed  by  Moses  in  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy,  and  referred  to  in  other  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  written  subsequently.  That  consti- 
tution, as  we  have  seen,  so  long  as  the  Hebrew  com- 
monwealth existed,  provided  a  certain  and  well  defined 
method  for  distinguishing  between  sacred  and  profane 
compositions.  And  no  tradition,  however  venerable  in 
other  respects,  that  is  invoked  for  the  purpose  of  super- 
seding that  method  is  entitled  to  any  consideration.  In 
fact,  what  the  Rabbins  say  about  the  relation  of  Esdras 
and  the  men  of  the  great  Sanhedrim  to  their  canon  is 
simply  one  of  their  many  legends,  and  is  misnamed  when 
called  a  tradition,  for  such  it  is  not  in  the  theological  sense 
attached  to  that  word.  For  example,  the  substitution 
of  Sunda}',  as  a  day  consecrated  to  the  service  of  God, 
by  the  founders  of  the  Christian  religion,  for  Saturday, 
the  day  so  sanctified  among  the  Jews,  is  a  tradition;  but 
essentially  different  not  only  in  its  object  but  in  its  na- 
ture from  the  one  in  question.  Thus  the  former  is 
invested  with  the  characteristics  of  universality  and 
perpetuit)'.  For  it  is  clearly  discernible  in  the  customs 
of  all  Christendom,  in  the  laws  of  all  Christian  nations, 
in  the  belief  of  all  Christian  people,  in  the  writings  of 
theologians,  in  the  sermons  of  preachers,  in  the  ex- 
hortations of  ascetics,  in  the  canons  of  councils,  in  the 
decrees  of  Popes,  etc.,  away  back  through  all  ages,  from 
the  present  to  that  of  the  apostles,  who,  although  they 
left  no  written  rule  enjoining  the  change,  are  rightly 
believed  to  have  made  it.    Whereas  the  latter,  intensely 


TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  TcsttDncnt.  163 

local  and  suspiciously  late,  is  never  heard  of  outside 
rabbinical  circles,  till  it  appears  in  the  Talmud,  a  work- 
replete  with  fables  and  absurdities;  not  a  word  of  which 
had  been  written  until  at  least  some  six  centuries 
after  the  time  when,  according  to  the  story,  Esdras 
had  executed  the  task  with  which  he  is  credited  by  the 
Jews. 

In  concluding  these  remarks  on  the  origin  and  com- 
pass of  the  Old  Testament  canon,  it  is  pertinent  to 
transcribe  here  the  following  statement  by  a  writer, 
whose  opinion  on  that  subject  is  entitled  to  the  greatest 
respect.  "  Authority  to  establish  a  canon  of  sacred 
books  without  doubt  belonged  to  the  High  Priest  of 
the  Hebrews  after  consulting  the  elders  and  the  San- 
hedrim ,  for,  if  it  was  the  duty  of  the  High  Priest  and 
priests  to  judge  between  leprosy  and  leprosy  (Lev.xiii.), 
indeed,  if  it  was  the  duty  of  the  High  Priest  to  decide  any 
controversy  concerning  the  law,  when  any  doubt  had 
arisen  (Lev.  xvii.),  without  doubt  it  belonged  to  him  also 
to  establish  such  a  canon  of  divine  books,  since  this  matter 
was  the  most  important  of  all  ;  so  that  it  is  not  remark- 
able, that  also  in  the  Church  the  authority  to  establish 
a  canon  of  this  kind  has  resided  in  one  pontiff,  either 
with  or  without  a  council."  ' 

Is  it  not  remarkable,  that  a  view  so  reasonable,  so 
consistent  with  the  Mosaic  legislation,  and  so  well  cal- 
culated to  solve  all  difficulties  connected  with  the  canon 
has  not  been  more  generally  embraced?  And  that  most 
(it  might  be  said  all)  of  those  who  have  discussed  that 
question,  whether  they  hold  that  until  the  time  of  Christ 
the  Jews  had  but  one  canon,  or  two,  overlook  the  fact, 
that  according  to  all  the  evidence  on  the  case  the  canon 
now  used  by  the  Jews,  and  known  as  the  rabbinical  be- 
cause   invented    by    the    Rabbins    long  after  the}-   had 

'  Jacobi  Bonfrerii  Prccloquia  in  totam  Scrip.  Sacram,  cap.  iii.,  %  vi.;  Migne, 
cur.  comp.  S.  Scrip.,  Tome  I.,  p.  12. 


1 64  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

rejected  the  Messiah,  is  quite  different  from  the  one 
which  the  Jews  followed  in  pre-Christian  times,  what- 
ever  that  one  may  have  been? 


CHAPTER  XII. 


Testimony  of  Flavius  Josephus,  the  Jewish  His- 
torian. 

That  the  deutero  books  were  never  in  any  way  recog- 
nized by  the  Jews  as  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  canon,  is 
maintained  by  many  Christian  critics,  in  consequence  of 
a  statement  by  the  Jewish  historian  Josephus.  The 
works  of  this  writer  are  now  in  such  a  condition,  that  it  is 
not  always  an  easy  matter  to  ascertain  the  genuine  text. 
Besides,  it  is  admitted  that,  whether  discussing  matters 
pertaining  to  the  Jewish  religion,  or  dealing  with  histor- 
ical subjects,  he  is  not  always  to  be  trusted.  Nor  does 
it  appear  that,  though  as  a  Pharisee  he  belonged  to  one 
of  the  strictest  sects  among  the  Jews,  his  general  course 
was  influenced  more  by  a  sense  of  duty  than  by  the 
baser  dictates  of  human  policy.  The  Jewish  priest  (for 
such  he  was)  who,  when  directed  by  Vespasian,  hesi- 
tated not  to  marry  a  captive  woman,  thus  knowinglv 
violating  the  law  of  Moses,  must  have  had  little  regard 
for  his  religious  principles  or  personal  honor ;  at  least 
not  so  much  as  for  the  favors  which  it  was  in  the  power 
of  his  imperial  patrons  to  bestow.  It  is  true  that  priests 
were  not  forbidden  to  marry  a  captive  woman ;  '  but 
Josephus,  following  the  construction  put  upon  the  Law 
of  Moses,^  probably  by  the  Pharisees,  has  twice  said  ' 
that  priests  were  not  permitted  to  contract  such  a  mar- 
riage. This  much  by  way  of  introduction  to  the  follow- 
ing  extract  from  the  Jewish  historian. 

'  Life,  %  75- 

^  Lev.  xxi.  7,  14.  ^  Antiq.  B.  iii.,  c.  xii.,  4  2;!.  Contra  Apion.,  7. 

165 


i66  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

"  For  we  have  not  myriads  of  discordant  and  contra- 
dictory books,  but  only  two  and  twenty,  containing  the 
record  of  all  time,  and  rightly  believed  to  be  divine. 
And  of  these,  five  are  the  books  of  Moses,  comprising 
the  laws,  and  the  tradition  of  the  human  race  down  to 
his  death.  This  period  was  a  little  short  of  three  thou- 
sand years.  But  from  the  death  of  Moses  till  the  reign 
of  Artaxerxes,  King  of  Persia,  who  succeeded  Xerxes, 
the  prophets  compiled  the  history  of  their  own  times  in 
thirteen  books.  The  other  four  contain  hymns  to  God 
and  counsels  of  life  to  men.  But  from  Artaxerxes  to 
our  times  all  events  have  indeed  been  written  down  ; 
but  these  later  books  are  not  deemed  worthy  of  the 
same  credit,  because  there  has  been  no  exact  succession 
of  prophets."  ^ 

This  is  the  earliest  notice  we  have,  that  the  books  re- 
ceived by  the  Jews  as  divine  amounted  to  22,  a  number 
fixed  upon,  not  because  there  were  actually  so  many 
sacred  Hebrew  books,  or  authors  of  these  books,  for 
that  could  not  be  proved,  but  because,  as  Origen'^  was 
the  first  to  remark,  there  were  22  letters  in  the  Hebrew 
alphabet.  As  we  have  seen  already,  these  books  were 
sometimes  also  reckoned  24  or  27,  the  Hebrew  letters 
being  in  either  case  so  arranged  that  the  number  of 
books  corresponded  with  that  of  the  letters.  So  that 
this  correspondence  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  pre- 
served, had  the  rabbinical  doctors  been  able  to  devise 
a  good  reason  for  augmenting  the  number  of  books, 
say,  to  50.  Indeed,  if  the  number  of  books  were  to  be 
determined,  not  by  the  number  of  letters  in  the  He- 
brew alphabet,  but  by  the  number  of  distinct  treatises  on 
the  rabbinical  canon,  or  bv  the  number  of  authors  whose 
writings  find  a  place  in  that  canon,  there  is  no  reason  for 
supposing  that  the  result  would  be  22,  24,  or  27.  By 
such  an  arbitrary  enumeration  as  the  one  adopted  by  the 

'  I.  Contra  Apion.,  §  8.  '  Euseb.,  Hist,  B.  vi.,  c.  25. 


The  Carnvi  of  the  Old  Testament.  167 

Rabbins,  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  the  Christian  canon 
of  the  Old  Testament,  embracing  45  books,  might  be  re- 
duced to  22  or  even  less.  This  number  22  has  been  the 
cause  of  more  confusion  and  discordance  among  Chris- 
tian writers  in  regard  to  the  canon,  than  any  other  fic- 
tion manufactured  by  the  Rabbins  while  expatiating  on 
that  subject. 

All  who,  in  arguing  that  the  Jews  had  never  any  can- 
on but  the  imperfect  one  which  they  have  now,  appeal 
to  the  authority  of  Josephus  as  evidenced  in  the  pre- 
ceding extract,  appear  to  regard  it  as  unquestionable 
that  Josephus  meant  to  say,  that  the  Jewish  canon  as  it 
existed  in  his  time  was  exactly  similar  to  that  now  fol- 
lowed by  the  rabbinical  teachers  and  their  Protestant 
pupils  ;  or,   if  it  .be   too  absurd  to  say    that  Josephus, 
writing  in  the  first  century,  foresaw  what  canon  the  Jews 
would  follow  in  the  nineteenth,  that  the  canon  described 
by  Josephus  is  identical  with  that  now  followed  by  Jews 
and  Protestants.     But  this  interpretation  of  Josephus' 
statement  is  false,  absolutely  false,   for  three   reasons : 
First,   because  Josephus   has   described   no  canon,   nor 
named  a  single  book,  nor  named  the  author  of  any  book 
or  books,  Moses  and  his  books  alone  excepted.     He  has 
really  said  nothing  in  his  statement  which  would  justify 
any  one  in  concluding,  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  five 
books  of  Moses,  any  one  of  his  22  is  now  found  in  the 
rabbinical  canon.     Second,  because  we  have  seen, '  that 
from  some  time  before  Josephus  wrote  until  far  in  the 
fourth  century,  the  Hebrew  canon  was  not  what  it  is  at 
present.     And  third,  because  a  strict  construction  of  the 
words  of  Josephus,  such  as  every  writer  should  be  bound 
by,  will    show  not  only    that  the  conclusion  generally 
drawn  from  his  statement  is  unwarranted,  but  that  he 
meant  to  say  that  several,  if  not  all,  of  the  deutero  books 
were  included  in  the  22  believed  to  be  divine.     For,  if 

'  Supra,  ch.  ix. 


i68  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

the  22  books  contain,  as  he  says  they  do,  "  the  record 
of  all  time,"  they  must  contain  the  record  of  the  entire 
period  from  the  creation  to  the  time  when  Josephus 
wrote.  Now,  as  the  rabbinical  canon  includes  only 
such  books  as  deal  with  events  which  transpired  be- 
tween the  creation  and  the  time  of  Malachias,  the  author 
of  the  latest '  book  in  that  canon,  the  compass  of  the 
Flavian  22  books  must  be  much  wider  than  that  of  the 
canon  indicated.  May  it  not  therefore  be  concluded 
that  those  22  books  included  such  as  were  contained  in 
the  Septuagint,  but  omitted  in  the  Hebrew  copies  cur- 
rent among  the  Rabbins  ? 

The  only  possible  repl}-  that  can  be  made  to  all  this 
by  those,  who  contend  that  the  statement  of  Josephus 
proves  that  the  canon  in  his  time  was  the  same  as  the 
one  which  the  Jews  have  now,  is  that,  as  Josephus  ex- 
cluded from  the  collection  of  divine  books  all  written 
after  the  reign  of  iVrtaxerxes,  and  as  the  deutero  books 
were  not  written  until  after  that  time,  they  were  not 
counted  by  Josephus  among  the  twenty-two.  But  this 
reply  takes  for  granted  two  points,  which  cannot,  but 
must  be  proved,  before  the  identity  of  the  present  rab- 
binical canon  and  the  Flavian  collection  can  be  admitted. 
These  two  points  are  :  First,  is  it  true  that  Josepus  has 
excluded  from  his  twenty-two  books  all  written  after  the 
reign  of  Artaxerxes  ?  Second,  is  it  true  that  all  the  deu 
tero  books  were  written  after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes? 
Both  questions  may  be  met  with  an  unqualified  negative. 
For,  first,  judged  b}'  his  own  words  "  from  Artaxerxes  to 
our  times  events  have  been  indeed  written  down,"  it  is 
only  historical  books  written  after  the  time  of  Artaxerxes, 
that  Josepus  sa3's  "  were  not  deemed  worthy  of  the  same 
credit,"  as  those  written  before.  The  only  books,  there- 
fore, excluded  by  Josepus  as  having  been  written  after 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  are  historical,  and  as  the  two 

'  Kitto's  Cyclop.,  art.  Malachi. 


TJie  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament.  169 

books  of  Machabees  are  the  only  historical  books  known 
certainly  to  have  been  written  snbseqiiently  to  that  date, 
these  are  the  only  two  deutero  books  for  which  no  place 
can  be  found  in  the  Flavian  canon,  while  the  Flavian 
statement  "  not  deemed  worthy  of  the  same  credit,  be- 
cause there  has  been  no  exact  succession  of  prophets  " 
is  not  by  any  means  inconsistent  with  the  divine  charac- 
ter of  the  two  books  in  question,  nor  does  it  prove  that 
Josephus  himself  regarded  them  as  mere  human  com- 
positions. 

Second,  it  is  not  at  all  certain,  that  all  the  deutero 
books  were  written  after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes.  Ba- 
ruch  was  written  long  before.  Whether  Tobias  and 
Judith  were  written  before  or  after  is  a  matter  of  doubt. 
Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  and,  as  just  remarked,  I.  and  II. 
Machabees  were  written  after.  It  is  therefore  certain 
that  it  is  not  true,  that  all  the  deutero  books  were  writ- 
ten after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  while  of  those  known 
to  have  been  written  after  that  time.  Wisdom  and  Eccle- 
siasticus, not  being  historical,  were  not,  according  to 
Josephus,  excluded  from  the  divine  twenty-two.  It  does 
not,  therefore,  by  any  means  follow  from  the  statement 
of  Josephus,  that  his  twenty-two  books  constituted  a  col- 
lection identical  with  that  contained  in  the  existing  rab- 
binical canon. 

Moreover,  Josephus  says  that "  from  the  death  of  Moses 
until  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  the  prophets  compiled  the 
history  of  their  own  times  in  thirteen  books."  It  there- 
fore follows,  if  Josephus  be  right,  that  the  rabbini- 
cal canon  was  finished  at  a  period  not  later  than  the 
reis-n  of  Artaxerxes.  Is  that  so  ?  Far  from  it,  for  it  has 
been  seen  already,'  that  there  are  in  some  of  these  books 
statements  which  could  not  have  been  written  before 
the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  that  is,  almost  a  cen- 
tury after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  had  closed.     Josephus 

1  Supra,  ch.  iii. 


1 70  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

may  have  written  as  he  learned  from  the  tradition  of  the 
Pharisees.  But  that  he  was  mistaken  in  this  matter 
there  can  be  no  doubt. 

Mistaken  also,  very  much  mistaken,  are  those  writers 
who,  to  use  the  words  of  Professor  Smith, '  declare  that 
"  we  can  affirm  with  practical  certainty,  that  the  twenty- 
two  books  of  Josephus  are  those  of  the  present  Hebrew 
canon."  For  if  this  were  so,the  Flavian  two  and  twenty 
would  contain  no  more  nor  no  less  than  what  is  con- 
tained in  that  canon.  And  critics,  in  enumerating  the 
books  supposed  to  have  been  referred  to  by  Josephus, 
would  not  only  follow  the  same  order,  but  be  able  to 
show  that  each  one  of  the  twenty-two  is  identical  with 
one  in  the  Hebrew  canon.  All  this  would  be  the  case 
were  the  Flavian  collection,  as  most  Protestant  writers 
affirm,  identical  with  the  Hebrew  canon,  or  what  is  the 
same,  the  Protestant  Old  Testament.  But  it  is  far  other- 
wise. Of  course,  all  critics  are  agreed  that  "  the  five  of 
Moses  "  are  the  Pentateuch.  But  as  soon  as  it  is  at- 
tempted to  identify  the  other  seventeen  the  discordance 
begins.  Hody  "  finds  in  the  Protestant  canon  a  book 
corresponding  to  each  of  the  Flavian  thirteen,  and  be- 
lieves that  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Canticles 
are  the  other  four  mentioned  by  Josephus.  Prideaux  ^ 
fills  the  bill  in  a  different  way,  for  he  follows  a  different 
order,  and  is  unable  to  find  room  for  I.  and  II.  Paralipom- 
enon  among  the  Flavian  two  and  twenty.  Havercamp  ■* 
proposes  two  ways  of  making  the  tally,  each  different 
from  the  two  preceding,  particularly  in  that  he  checks 
off  the  Flavian  four  books  of  hymns  and  counsels  by 
Psalms,  book  No.  i  ;  Job,  book  No  2  ;  Proverbs,  book 
No.  3  ;  and  Ecclesiastes  with  Canticles,  book  No.  4. 
Whiston  strikes  out  for  himself,  by  asserting  that  Baruch 

'  Hist,  of  the  Old  Test,  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  149. 

"^  De  Bibl.  Text.,  p.  644.         ^   Connex.,  ii.  p.  272.        ^  Josepus,  ii.  441. 


Tiie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  lyi 

is  "  canonical ;  "  '  that  apocryphal  III.  Esdras  instead  of 
1.  Edras  was  included  in  the  Flavian  twenty-two,  and  that 
I.  Esdras  and  Canticles  were  never  seen  by  Josephus.  '" 
Haneberg  is  of  opinion,  that  the  Flavian  twenty-two  did 
not  include  I.  and  II.  Paralipomenon,  Esdras,  and  Esther, 
but  in  this  is  opposed  by  Franzelin  '  and  Cornely.  ' 
Danko  ''  is  unable  to  recognize  Job  as  one  of  the  Flavian 
two  and  twenty.  It  is  therefore  evident,  at  all  events; 
that  we  cannot  afifirm  with  any  certainty,  practical  or 
otherwise,  that  all  of  the  Flavian  twenty-two  books  are 
those  of  our  present  Hebrew  canon. 

But  has  not  Josephus  in  the  compilation  of  his  works 
made  use  of  all  the  books  on  the  Hebrew  canon?  He 
has  not,  for  all  were  not  suited  to  his  purposes.  But 
suppose  he  has,  though  Whiston,  as  we  have  just  seen, 
is  confident  that  Josephus  never  even  saw  some  of  them, 
that  does  not  prove  that  his  twenty-two  books  are 
identical  with  those  contained  in  that  canon,  unless 
those  who  say  so  can  show  that  Josephus  has  not  made 
the  same  use  of  certain  other  scriptural  or  quasi  scrip- 
tural books,  which  are  not  on  that  canon,  as  he  has  of 
those  which  belong  to  it.  But  this  the}^  cannot  do. 
For  Josephus  has  actually  copied  the  contents  of  several 
such  books,  without  even  hinting  that  they  were  other 
than  divine.  Thus,  all  who  have  read  the  works  of 
Josephus  are  aware  that  the  three  first  chapters  of  Book 
XI.  of  his  Antiquities  are  composed  almost  from  begmning 
to  end  of  what  he  read  in  III.  Esdras,  that  he  has 
also  incorporated  in  his  Antiqjiities  (Book  XL,  c.  vi.,  §  4) 
Esther  xii.,  and  in  the  same  work  (Book  XL,  c.  vi.,  §  6) 
the  first  letter  of  Artaxerxes  contained  in  Esther  xiii,, 
and  in  Antiquities  {^ook  XL,  c.  vi.,  §  12)  the  substance 
of  the  second  letter  of  Artaxerxes,  found  in  Esther  xvi. 

'  Note  Jos.  Aniiq.,  B.  x.,  c.  ix.,  ^S  i.     '^  Note  Jos.  Contra  Apion.,  B.  i.,  $  8. 

*  De  Div.  Tract,  et  Scrip,  p.  395.  ■■  Introd.  in  S.  Scrip,  i.  p.  46. 

*  In  S.  Scrip,  i.  p.  18. 


172  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

All  these  statements,  remember,  are  contained,  not  in 
proto,  but  in  deutero  Esther.  Besides  many  of  the  ma- 
terials on  which  Josephus  worked  while  engaged  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  chapters  of  his  Antiquities,  the  first 
Book  of  his  Wars  of  the  Jews,  and  his  work  on  the  MacJia- 
bees,  or  the  Empire  of  Reason,  have  been  drawn  from  the 
deutero  books  of  Machabees.  All  these  Scriptures  Jo- 
sephus has  copied  without  intimating  in  any  way,  that 
in  point  of  authority  he  considered  them  inferior  to  the 
two  and  twenty  divine  books.  It  must,  however,  be  ad- 
mitted that,  according  to  what  he  has  said  while  writing 
Contra  Apion.  (B.  i.  §  8),  Machabees,  having  been  written 
after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  did  not  in  his  opinion 
deserve  the  same  credit  as  the  twenty-two  books.  But 
this  cannot  be  said  of  Esdras  III.,  which,  although  its 
age  is  unknown,  deals  with  events  which  preceded  the 
reign  of  Artaxerxes,  and  for  that  reason  seems  to  have 
been  used  by  Josephus,  who,  there  is  everj^  reason  to 
believe,  included  it  among  the  twenty-two. 

That  Josephus  really  included  III.  Esdras  among  the 
twenty-two  books  believed  to  be  divine  is,  however, 
rendered  extremely  probable  only  by  the  use  he  has 
made  of  it, and  the  date  of  the  events  which  it  describes. 
But  in  addition  to  these  two  reasons,  which  also  hold 
with  regard  to  deutero  Esther,  there  is  the  further  fact 
that  Joseph  ben  Gorion,  a  Jewish  writer  of  the  ninth 
century,  has  included  deutero  Esther  in  his  Jewish 
history.  ^  These  considerations  will  at  least  warrant 
the  conclusion  that  that  part  of  Esther  was  well  known 
to  Jewish  scholars,  and  treated  by  them  as  belonging  to 
the  authentic  records  of  their  race.  But  there  is  another 
argument,  which,  besides  confirming  this  conclusion, 
renders  it  certain,  so  far  as  certainty  is  possible  in  such 
matters,  that  deutero  Esther  was  considered  divine  by 
the  Jews  before  and  in  the  time  of  Josephus.  This 
.argument  will  now  be  submitted. 

'  B.  ii.,  c.  2.  (Calmet,  Prolegoin.  in  Libnim  Esther.'^ 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  173- 

The  reader  is  aware  thatj  Esther  of  the  Protestant. 
Bible  from  beginning  to  end,  and  Esther  of  the  Catholic 
Bible  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  verse  third, 
chapter  tenth,  are  substantially  identical,  both  being  trans- 
lations from  the  Hebrew,  the  former  by  King  James's 
theologians,  the  latter  by  St.  Jerome.  At  the  end  of 
verse  third,  chapter  tenth,  the  Latin  Vulgate  has  a  note 
by  St.  Jerome,  stating  that  all  of  the  book  which  pre- 
ceded that  verse  had  been  translated  by  him  from  the 
Hebrew,  and  that  what  followed  that  verse  he  had  found 
in  the  old  Latin  version  made  from  the  Greek,  and  made, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  in  the  infancy  of  the  Church. 
It  thus  happens  that  verse  third  of  chapter  X.  is  followed 
by  ten  more  verses,  thus  completing  that  chapter,  and  by 
six  more  chapters.  All  these  St.  Jerome,  because  he  did 
not  find  them  in  the  existing  Hebrew,  removed  to  the 
end  of  the  book,  wrenching  them  from  the  places  they 
held  in  the  old  Latin  version,  and  still  hold  in  the  Greek, 
where,  however,  they  present  a  continuous  and  well  con- 
nected narrative.  In  order  that  this  may  be  better  under- 
stood, here  is  shown  the  manner,  in  which  the  Greek 
Esther,  of  which  the  old  Latin  was  a  version,  has  been 
arranged  in  the  Vulgate  left  by  St.  Jerome. 

Greek.  Vulgate. 

Chapter  XL  2-12;  XII.  1-6. 
II. 
«*        III.  1-15  ;  XIII.  1-7. 

IV.  1-8;  XV.  2-3  ;  IV.  9-17;  XIII.  8-18  : 
XIV.  1-19. 
"         XV.  4-19  ;  V.  3-14. 
"         VI. 
VII. 

VIII.  1-13;  XVI.  1-24;  VIII.  14-17. 
IX. 
X.  1-13;  XI.  I. 

Now,  in  the  Vulgate  Esther,  the  first  verse  of  chapter 
XI.  is  the  subscription  appended  at  the  end  of  the  Greek 


Chapter  I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

\rTTT 

V 1 11 
IX. 

X. 

174  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Esther,  by  some  Alexandrian  Jew,  in  which  it  is  stated, 
that,  "  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  and 
Cleopatra,  Dositheus,  who  said  he  was  a  priest,  and  of 
the  Levitical  race,  and  Ptolemy  his  son,  brought  this 
epistle  of  Purim,  which  they  said  Lysimachus  had  trans- 
lated in  Jerusalem."  This  subscription  is  found  in  the 
end  of  the  Alexandrian  as  well  as  the  Vatican  Codex, 
and  imports  that  the  Book  of  Esther,  or,  as  it  is  here 
called  the  "  Epistle  of  Purim  (lots)  '  with  its  deutero  as 
well  as  proto  parts,  as  they  are  preserved  in  the  Septua- 
gint,  after  having  been  translated  into  Greek  at  Jerusa- 
lem by  a  certain  Lysimachus,  was  brought  to  the  Alex- 
andrian Jews  by  one  Dositheus,  a  priest,  and  his  son 
Ptolem}',  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  reign  of  Ptolemv  and 
Cleopatra.  In  this  inquirj'  it  is  a  point  of  some  interest 
to  ascertain  what  Ptolemy  is  here  meant.  But  this  is 
not  so  easily  done,  as  Ptolemy  was  a  common  name  for 
the  kings  of  Egypt,  and  the  wives  of  at  least  five  of 
them,  who  reigned  between  205  and  43  B.  C,  were 
called  Cleopatra.  Whatever  Ptolemy  is  meant,  it  is  evi- 
dent, however,  from  the  subscription  that  there  was  no 
attempt  at  the  time  to  obstruct  the  intercourse  which  the 
Jews  of  Jerusalem  were  always  anxious  to  maintain  with 
those  of  Alexandria,  and  that  the  latter  had  reason  to 
regard  as  a  friend  the  Ptolemy  then  reigning,  while  their 
treatment  by  man}-  of  the  other  Ptolemies  was  too  often 
cruel  and  oppressive.  There  is,  in  fact,  but  one  Ptolemy 
whose  character  and  relations  with  his  Jewish  subjects 
correspond  with  the  presumption  suggested  by  the 
subscription.  That  is  Ptolemy  Philometer,  who  first 
reigned  conjointl}^  with  his  mother.  Queen  Cleopatra, 
during  his  minority,  and  afterwards  with  his  wife  Cleo- 
patra, from  180  to  146  B.  C.  He  was  a  prince  of  a 
humane,  generous,  and  tolerant  disposition,  and  is  said  to 
have  conferred  many  favors  on  the  Jews,  by  whom  he 

1  Esther  ix.  26,  32. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  175 

with  his  army,  while  marching-  through  their  countr}-  to 
Syria,  was  well  received,  he  in  turn  presenting  many 
valuable  gifts  to  their  High  Priest  Jonathan. '  Besides, 
he  appears  to  have  felt  considerable  interest  in  the 
Jewish  Scriptures  ;  for  Aristobulus,  a  Jew  who  had 
lived  about  the  same  time,  a  priest,  probably  one  of  the 
LXX  interpreters,  and  it  may  be  the  same  to  whom  the 
Jerusalem  Jews  wrote  an  epistle,'  is  said  to  have  pre- 
pared for  him  a  commentary  on  the  Laws  of  Moses.' 
Furthermore,  it  was  Ptolemy  Philometer  who,  with 
Queen  Cleopatra,  permitted  Onias,  the  fugitive  successor 
to  the  high  priesthood,  to  erect  a  temple  in  Egypt,  and  ad- 
judicated the  dispute  between  the  Jews  and  the  Samari- 
tans, each  party  maintaining  that  its  own  temple  alone 
was  sanctioned  by  the  Law  of  Moses.  *  Joseph  us  "  also 
states  that  two  Jews,  Onias  and  Dositheus,  the  former 
perhaps  the  founder  of  the  Judaso-Egyptian  temple,  the 
latter,  it  may  be,  the  same  who,  possfbly  under  the  au- 
spices of  Ptolemy  Philometer,  brought  the  Greek  Esther 
to  Alexandria,  wei-e  placed  by  that  prince  and  Queen 
Cleopatra  in  important  military  positions,  to  the  signal 
advantage  both  of  the  country  and  the  royal  family.  ' 
As  to  Lysimachus,  the  interpreter,  who  translated 
Esther  from  Hebrew  into  Greek,  with,  remember,  all 
its  deutero  parts,  as  stated  in  the  subscription  to  the 
Greek  Esther,  it  is  known  that  in  the  early  part  of  the 
reign  of  Ptolemy  Philometer  the  High  Priest  at  Jeru- 
salem was  named  Lysimachus, 'and  was  there  killed  in  an 
insurrection  in  171  B.  C.  But  whether  he  was  the  same 
Lysimachus  with  him  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the 
Greek  copy  of  Esther  cannot  be  said,  although  his  age, 

1  I.  Mach.  xi. ;    Jos.,  Antiq.^  B.  xiii.,  c.  iv.,  §  5. 

2  II.  Mach.  i.  10.  3  Euseb.  Prep.  Evangel.,  B.  Vlf.,  c.  xiii. 
*  Jos.,  Antiq.,  B.  XIII..  c.  iii.,  §  i-4,  5  \\   Contra  Apion.,  §  5. 

^  In  89  B.  C.  Clieleias  and  Ananias,  sons  ()f  Onias,  were  in  command  of  the 
forces  of  Queen  Cleopatrii.     ]os.,  Antiq.,   B.  XIII.,  c.  x.,  ^4, 
'   II.  Mach.  iv.  29,  42. 


I  "jf)  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

his  position,  and  his  knowledge  of  Greek,  as  implied  in  his 
Grecian  name,  would  render  the  supposition  plausible. 
But  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  preceding  conjectures, 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  that  the  Ptolemy  of  the  sub- 
scription is  Ptolemy  Philometer,  and  in  this  conclusion 
almost  all  critics,  Protestant  as  well  Catholic,  are  agreed. 
So  that  the  Greek  Esther,  with  all  its  deutero  parts,  must 
have  been  brought  into  Alexandria  about  177  B.  C,  and 
as  it  had  been  translated  at  Jerusalem  before  that,  it 
must  have  been  known  to  the  Jews  there.  And  since  it 
is  certain  that  it,  as  soon  as  received  at  Alexandria,  was 
enrolled  among  the  other  Scriptures  by  the  Jews  who 
were  there  settled,  it  follows  that  it  was  considered  part 
of  their  Old  Testament  b}'  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem  ;  other- 
wise the  former  would  not  have  placed  it  among  the 
divine  books.  It  was,  besides,  known  to  and  used  by 
Josephus.  And  since,  as  we  have  seen,  he  has  incor- 
porated its  contents  in  his  works,  without  making  any 
distinction  between  those  portions  common  to  it  and 
the  existing  Hebrew  copy  on  the  one  hand,  and  what 
the  former  has  and  the  latter  has  not  on  the  other,  he 
must  have  considered  that  the  entire  book,  as  he  found 
it  in  the  Septuagint,  was  divine,  and  therefore  a  part  of 
the  twenty-two  which  the  Jews  received  in  his  time. 

These  facts  prove  that  Esther,  deutero  as  well  as 
proto,  was  in  the  Jewish  canon  in  177  B.  C,  Lysimachus 
having  before  that  translated  it  into  Greek  for  the  use 
of  the  Hellenists,  and  that  it  was  still  on  that  canon 
when  Josephus  wrote  in  the  latter  part  of  the  first 
Christian  century.  Indeed,  all  Protestant  critics  con- 
tend that  proto  Esther  was  one  of  the  Flavian  twenty- 
two  divine  books,  and  Catholic  critics  are  very  general- 
ly of  the  same  opinion,  though  not  unanimous,  in 
holding  that  Esther  as  it  stood  on  the  Hebrew  canon 
comprised  the  deutero  portion  of  that  volume.  But  it 
has  been  shown,   that  about  the  middle  of  the  second 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  \  yy 

century  Esther,  whether  proto  or  deutcro,  was  not  one 
of  the  sacred  books  in  the  possession  of  the  Palestinian 
Jews,  and  that  after  having  been  lost  or  discarded  for 
some  time,  it  was  found  again  on  their  canon,  with, 
however,  an  aspect  so  wordly,  and  in  a  condition  so 
mutilated,  that  a  Protestant  writer  is  forced  to  confess 
that   "  no    religious   Jews   could    well    be    the   authors 

of   It.'" 

These  vicissitudes  which  the  book  of  Esther  has  ex- 
perienced among  the   Jews  are   thus  accounted   for :  ' 
From  the  time  that  the  feast  of  Purim,  as  directed  in 
Esther, '  was  observed  by  the  Jews,  the  book  was  read 
in  the  synagogues  on  the  day  appointed  for  the  purpose. 
The  celebration  at  first  was  probably  conducted  as  a  re- 
ligious  solemnity  at  which  all  assembled,  not  only  to 
hear  the  inspired    account   in    which    the    providential 
deliverance  of  the  Jews  from  the   murderous   plot  of 
Aman  was  described,  but  to  return  thanks  to  God  for 
the  protection  then  extended  to  his  people.     But  the 
festival,  from  being  an  occasion  of  pious  joy  and  thanks- 
giving,  became    by    degrees   a  day  of  dissipation   and 
revelry,  and  its  yearly  recurrence  only  served  to  show 
that  the  feast  of  Purim,  though  in  its  origin  calculated  to 
foster  devout  and  patriotic  sentiments  among  the  Jews, 
only    tended   as   time    went    on    to   excite    their    worst 
passions,  and  encourage  among  them  bacchanalian  or- 
gies under  the  sanction  of  religion.  '  It  was  the  custom 
for   the    whole    congregation,   when  the  name  of  Mor- 
dechai  occurred  in  the    reading  of   Esther,  to  exclaim 
Blessed  be  Mordeehai ;  and  when  they  heard  the  name  of 
Aman   pronounced,  to  say  May  his  name  perish,  at  the 
same    time    stamping    with    their   feet,    clapping    their 

'  Whiston,  Note  on  Jos.  Atitiq.,  B.  xi.  c.  vi.  §  13. 

'  Vide  Comely,  Hist,  ct  Cntica  Introd.  in  V.  T.  Lihros  Sacros.  Volumen  IT., 
ii.,  407,  who,  with  other  Cathoh'c  writers,  in  this  matter  follows  J.  B.  de  Rossi'. 
2  Esther  ix.,  27,  etc.  ;  x.  13. 


1 78  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

hands,  hissing,  and  pounding  the  walls  andbenches  with 
stones  or  mallets.  Plays  and  masquerades  were  in- 
dulged in.  Notwithstanding  the  prohibition  of  Moses, ' 
each  sex  assumed  sometimes  the  dress  of  the  other,  and 
it  was  lawful  to  drink  to  such  a  degree  that  the  wor- 
shippers, unable  any  longer  to  discriminate  between 
Mordechai  and  Aman,  showered  blessings  upon,  or 
hurled  curses  at  either  indiscriminately.  *  Now  the 
Greek  Esther,  which  undoubtedly  is  identical  with  the 
Hebrew  Esther  at  the  first  appearance  of  the  latter,  is 
an  edifying  book,  as  much  so  probably  as  any  other  of 
the  historical  books  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  efficacy 
of  fasting  and  prayer  is  well  exemplified  therein  ;  sor- 
row for  sin  is  feelingly  expressed,  and  God's  holy  name 
is  often  reverently  mentioned,  his  power  magnified,  his 
mercy  extolled,  and  his  protection  earnestly  invoked  in 
it.  To  read  such  a  book,  under  such  circumstances  as 
were  connected  with  the  celebration  of  the  feast  of 
Purim,  must  have  presented  an  awful  spectacle  to  de- 
vout Jews,  and  nothing  less  than  a  profanation  to  such 
among  them  as  still  believed  that  Judaism  of  an}-  kind 
Avas  far  superior  to  the  highest  form  of  refined  paganism. 
At  least  so  the  Rabbins  seemed  to  think.  Foi%  after 
having  at  first  excluded  Esther  from  the  canon  either 
actually  or  practically  b}'  forbidding  the  reading  of  it, 
the}^  afterwards  restored  it  to  the  canon,  but  so  changed 
that  it  could  be  read  at  the  feast  of  Purim  without 
shocking  the  devout  feelings  of  the  more  religious  who 
shared  in  the  celebration.  Possibly  it  was  not  in  the 
power  of  the  Rabbins  to  correct  the  gross  abuses  which 
disgraced  the  occasion.  At  all  events,  Theodosius  II. 
seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  institute  measures  for 
that  purpose,  when,  in  order  to  prevent  the  violent  and 
indecent  scenes  often  witnessed  at  the  time  of  Purim, 

'  Deut.  xxii.  5. 

'^  Prid.,  Cotinex.,  i.,  263;  Kitto's  Cycl.  (Purim);  Milman,  Hist,  of  the  Jews, 
iii.  36. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  179 

an  imperial  decree  '  was  made  on  the  subject.  This 
was  in  the  fifth  century.  But  Esther  had  ah"eady  been 
withdrawn  from  and  restored  to  the  Hebrew  canon, 
after  having-  been  so  mutilated  that  amidst  the  excesses  of 
Purim  it  could  be  very  appropriately  read.  It  thus 
happens  that  any  one  may  peruse  the  Hebrew  Esther 
from  beginning  to  end  without  even  once  meeting  with 
the  hoi}'  name  of  God,  the  Rabbins  having  carefuUj^ 
excluded  from  it  all  those  sections  in  which  any  refer- 
ence is  made  to  the  Deity,  that  it  might  be  thus  adapted 
to  the  style  in  which  the  feast  of  Purim  was  kept.  Al- 
though, therefore,  not  justly  chargeable  with  corrupt- 
ing the  sacred  text,  all  the  circumstances  go  to  prove 
that  they  have  been  guilty  of  mutilating  the  contents 
of  the  sacred  volume. 

'   Codex  Theodos.,  xvi.,  De  Judceis,  (1.  l8:  Milman,  Hist,  of  the  Jews,  vol.  iii. 
36). 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


Further  Remarks  on  the  Testimony  of  Josephus. 

Some  remarks  remain  to  be  made  on  the  last  clause 
in  the  statement  of  Josephus,  before  a  correct  estimate 
can  be  made  regarding  the  value  of  his  testimony,  so  far 
as  that  testimony  relates  to  the  deutero  books.      The 
clause  in  question  is  "  From  Artaxerxes  to  our  times,  all 
events  have  indeed  been  written  down,  but  these  later 
books    are    not   deemed    worthy    of   the   same   credit, 
because  there  has  been  no  exact  succession  of  prophets." 
It  is  not  necessary  here  to  engage  in  any  explanation  of* 
the  functions  performed  by  the  prophets,  as  the  subject 
is  fully  discussed  in  vol.  IV.  of  Migne's  Cursus  Scrip- 
tures, A   Lapide's    Proem   to   the   Prophets,  and  Calmet's 
Prolegomena   to   the  Prophets.      Let  it  therefore    be   ob- 
served  at  once,   that  the  word  succession  in  the  above 
clause   is   ill-chosen,    being    misleading   and    incorrect. 
For  it  implies  that  prophet  succeeded  prophet,  as  regu- 
larly   as    high    priest   followed    high    priest  ;    that   the 
position  occupied  by  the  prophets,  instead  of  being  an 
intermittent  gift  immediately  bestowed  by  God,  was  a 
permanent  ofihce,  vacancies  in  which  were  filled  by  right 
of  inheritance,  or  some  one  of  the  methods  employed 
in  such  cases;  and  that  from  Moses,  rather  Adam,  to 
Artaxerxes   there    had    been   an   uninterrupted  line   of 
prophets,  just  as    there   had    been   a  regular  series  of 
pontiffs  from  Aaron  to  the  fall  of  the  Temple.     Strange 
would  it  not  be,  had  the  succession  of  the  prophets,  at 

180 


TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  1 8 1 

least  as  inspired  writers,  for  the  word  in  its  less  re- 
stricted sense  included  such,  been  closed  so  long  before 
that  of  the  high  priests  ?  For  writers  of  that  class 
were  hardly  less  necessary  after  than  before  the  reign 
of  Artaxerxes.  Besides,  Josephus'  "  succession  of  proph- 
ets "  sadl}'  disturbs  the  picture  which  the  Scriptures, 
and  even  he  himself,  have  drawn  of  those  remarkable 
characters,  who  issued  forth  from  time  to  time  to  give 
their  contemporaries  a  glimpse  of  the  future,  and 
thus  reveal  to  a  sinful  generation  the  certain  chastise- 
ments that  awaited  its  misdeeds.  They  were  called  by 
God  for  special  purposes,  and  under  exceptional  con- 
ditions. And  when  each  of  them  disappeared,  the 
mission  which  he  filled  might  or  might  not,  according 
to  circumstances,  be  filled  by  another  called  forth  in  the 
same  way.  There  were  periods  in  which  the  labors  of 
the  prophets  seem  never  to  have  been  interrupted  ;  such 
was  that  from  the  reign  of  Ozias,  King  of  Juda,  till 
about  the  closing  years  of  Neheraias,  an  interval  of 
about  three  hundred  years.  Of  these  prophets  there 
were  seventeen,  Osee  being  first  and  Malachias  last. 
Several  of  them  lived  at  the  same  time,  and  the  prophet- 
ic utterances  of  each  are  contained  in  a  book  which 
goes  by  his  name.  But  there  were  times  when  there 
was  no  prophet  to  be  found,  and  regarding  which  to  use 
the  word  succession  would  be  an  abuse  of  language. 
For,  from  Josue  to  Samuel,  a  period  of  three  hundred 
years,  the  only  person  who  is  mentioned  as  possessed  of 
the  prophetic  spirit  was  Debora.  '  In  the  early  part  of 
Samuel's  career  there  could  have  been  no  prophet,  "  for 
the  word  of  the  Lord  was  precious  in  these  da3's,  there 
was  no  manifest  vision  ;"  ^  and  when  the  three  children 
were  surrounded  by  the  flames  of  the  fiery  furnace, 
among  the  many  national  calamities  which  they  de- 
plored,  was  the  want  of  a  prophet.  ^      The  successmi, 

'  Judges  iv.  4.  ^  I.  Kings  iii.  i .  '  Dan.  iii.  38. 


1 82  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

therefore,  mentioned  by  Josephus  may  be  classified 
among  the  vain  traditions  of  the  Pharisees,  though,  if 
the  Rabbins  are  to  be  believed,  there  was  such  a  succes- 
sion from  Adam  to  Malachias. 

Lest,  however,  Josephus  may  have  been  misinter- 
preted in  the  preceding  remarks,  let  us,  for  the  sake  of 
argument,  agree  with  Walton, '  that  the  Jewish  historian 
discredited  all  books  written  after  Artaxerxes,  simply 
"  because  they  were  not  written  by  prophets,  or  men 
divinely  inspired  ;  "  or  let  us  accept  the  only  other  con- 
struction that  can  be  put  on  the  Flavian  clause,  "  be- 
cause it  is  not  certain  that  there  were  any  prophets  after 
the  time  of  Artaxerxes."  If  the  Waltonian  interpreta- 
tion be  correct,  how,  it  may  be  asked,  did  Josephus 
know,  that  of  all  books  belonging  to  dates  subsequent 
to  Artaxerxes  not  one  was  written  by  a  prophet  or  a 
man  divinely  inspired;  that,  while  the  book  of  Ruth,  for 
instance,  was  the  work  of  some  such  author,  that  of 
Judith  was  not?  No  High  Priest,  no  Prophet,  no 
Council,  no  inspired  writer  has  declared  that  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  were  all  written  between  the  time  of  Moses 
and  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  or  that  books  written  after 
were  less  authoritative  than  those  written  during  that 
interval.  If,  therefore,  the  Flavian  clause  means  what 
Walton  says  it  does,  the  allegation  contained  in  that 
clause  rests  on  no  authority  other  than  Josephus  him- 
self, a  writer  whose  testimony  on  other  points  cannot, 
as  all  admit,  be  always  reconciled  with  the  authority  of 
the  Old  Testament,  even  when  he  professes  to  follow  it. 
Besides,  as  interpreted  by  Walton,  the  statement  of 
Josephus  would  imply,  that  books  among  the  Jews,  after 
Artaxerxes,  were  no  longer  written  by  prophets,  or 
men  inspired  ;  a  conclusion  which,  though  a  Jew  may  in- 
sist on,  a  Christian  cannot  grant.  For  it  is  certain  that 
even  in  Old  Testament  times,  and  four  full  centuries  after 

'  Proleg.  iv.  5. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  183 

the  death  of  Artaxerxes,  the  Benedieta  tu  oi  Elizabeth, ' 
the  Magnifieat  of  JMarj,'^  and  the  Betiediettis  of  Zachary,  ' 
all  profoundly  prophetic  utterances,  were  pronounced 
by  persons  tilled  with  the  same  Holy  Spirit  by  whom 
the  ancient  prophets  were  enlightened. 

If  Josephus  intended  to  say,  that  there  were  no  proph- 
ets after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  or  even  that  it  was 
uncertain  whether  there  were  any  prophets  after  that 
time,  he  is  contradicted  by  himself,  by  the  inspired 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  by  Philo,  and  the  Tal- 
mudic  and  rabbinical  doctors.  By  himself  :  for  he  says 
of  the  Hign  Priest  John  Hyrcanus :  "  he  it  was  who 
alone  had  three  of  the  most  desirable  things  :  the  gov- 
ernment of  his  nation,  and  the  high  priesthood,  and  the 
gift  of  propheey,  for  the  Deity  conversed  with  him,  and 
he  was  not  ignorant  of  anything  that  was  to  come 
afterwards;"'  that,  "  God  came  to  discourse  with  him," 
and  that  when  "  he  was  alone  in  the  temple,  as  high 
priest  offering  incense,"  he  received  a  divine  communi- 
cation, which  on  coming  out  of  the  Temple  he  an- 
nounced to  all  the  people,  and  which  proved  to  be 
true.'  Such  communications  were  made  through  the 
breast-plate  worn  by  the  High  Priest,  but,  according  to 
Josephus,  ceased  two  hundred  years  before  he  wrote  his 
Antiquities,  '  that  is,  one  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
but  long  after  the  time  of  Artaxerxes.  Judas  the  Essene 
was  also  another  prophet,  and  one  "  who  never  missed  the 
truth  in  his  predictions." '  So  were  Pollio '  and  Manahen," 
both  of  whom  lived  as  late  as  the  time  of  Herod  the 
Great.  Even  as  late  as  the  time  of  Josephus  there  were 
some  who  undertook  "  to  tell  things  to  come  ....  and 
it  is  but  seldom  that  they  miss  in  their  predictions."  '" 
In  fact,  so   far  were  the  Jews  from  admitting  that  the 

1   Luke  i.  42.         "  Ibid.  46.         3  Ibid.  68.  '  IVars,  B.  i.,  c.  ii.,  $  8. 

s  Antiq.,  B.  xiii.,  c.  x.,  g  3.         '•  Antiq.,  B.  iii.,  c  viii.  §  9. 

1  Ibid.,  B.  xiii.,  c.  xi.,  Jj  2.  **  Ibid.,  B.  xv.,  c.  i.,  §  i.  "   Ibid.,  c.  x.,  §  5 

'0    [Vais,  li.  ii.,  c.  viii.  j;  12. 


184  J^iie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

gift  of  prophec}'  had  been  withdrawn  from  them  after 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  that  it  seems  that  in  the  time 
of  Herod  the  Great  the  Pharisees  "  were  believed  to 
have  the  foreknowledge  of  things  to  come  by  divine 
inspiration."  '  Josephus  is,  therefore,  contradicted  by 
himself.  And  his  contradiction  of  himself  is  confirmed 
by  those  numerous  statements  in  the  Books  of  Macha- 
bees,  from  which  it  appears,  that  during  the  period 
included  in  these  Books  the  miraculous  occurrences 
and  divine  manifestations,  by  which  the  whole  previous 
history  of  the  Jews  had  been  signalized,  had  by  no 
means  ceased. 

But  Josephus  is  also  contradicted  by  the  writers  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  in  fact  must  be  contradicetd  bv 
all  who  believe  in  that  inspired  volume.  For,  accord- 
ing to  those  whose  writings  are  contained  in  it,  Zacha- 
ry  "  prophesied,"  ^  his  wife  "  Elizabeth  was  filled  with 
the  Holy  Ghost,"  ^  and  her  youthful  cousin  Mary  at  the 
same  time,  in  saying  ''  Henceforth  all  generations  shall 
call  me  blessed,"'  uttered  a  prophecy  the  literal  fulfil- 
ment of  which  has  been  in  the  past, and  will  be  in  the 
future  witnessed  in  ever}'  age.  This  prophesying  took 
place,  too,  while  the  Jewish  Church  was  still  standing; 
and  before  Christ  was  born.  After  that  glorious  event 
it  is  said  of  Simeon  that  "the  Holy  Ghost  was  in  him. 
And  he  had  secured  an  answer  from  the  Holy  Ghost. . .  . 
And  he  came  by  the  Spirit  into  the  temple,"  '  where  he 
recognized  the  Child  Jesus,  and  foretold  the  future  not 
only  of  that  Child  but  of  His  Mother  Mary,  Anna  the 
"  prophetess"  being  also  present  on  the  occasion.  Indeed, 
it  is  certain  that  if  Josephus  meant  to  say,  that  after  the 
reign  of  Artaxerxes  prophets  and  prophesying  ceased, 
he  expressed  an  opinion  directly  contrary  to  that  held 
by  the  Jews  generally,  for  the  whole  people  were  per- 

1  Antiquities,  B.  xvii.,  c.  ii.,  §  4. 

2  Luke  i.  67.  ^  Ibid.  41.  ••  Ibid.  48.  '  Ibid.  ii.  25. 


The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament.  185 

suaded  that  John  the  Baptist,  for  example,  was  a  prophet. ' 
Josephus  wrote  as  taught  by  the  Pharisees.  But  even 
they  seem  to  have  thought  it  possible  for  a  prophet  to 
rise  except  in  Galilee. "  And  St.  John,  who  reflected  the 
belief  of  conscientious  Jews  better  than  Josephus  or  any 
Pharisee,  appears  from  his  Gospel  (xi.  5 1)  to  have  thought 
that  Caiphas  the  High  Priest,  even  when  engaged  in  a 
wicked  conspiracy,  actually  "  prophesied."  During  the 
life  of  Our  Lord,  therefore,  prophets  were  not  wanting. 
Nor  did  they  cease  after  that,  as  the  Apostolic  writings 
amply  testify.  Agabus,  for  example,  is  called  a  "  proph- 
et "  ^  and  proved  himself  such  b)  foretelling  what  really 
happened  afterwards  to  St.  Paul.  Indeed,  he  had  already 
shown  that  he  was  entitled  to  the  name  when  he"  signi- 
fied by  the  Spirit  that  there  should  be  a  great  famine  over 
the  whole  world,  \vhich  came  to  pass  under  Claudius." 
That  there  were  at  the  same  time  other  "  prophets  "  is  de- 
clared in  the  preceding  verse  ;  and  Adam  Clarke,  a  Prot- 
estant commentator,  in  his  note  on  it  declares,  that  they 
"  were  wwdi^r  divine  inspiration,  and  foretold  future  events." 
Had  he  studied  the  lives  of  the  post-apostolic  saints  with 
the  same  care  and  freedom  from  prejudice,  he  could 
have  easily  found  evidence  to  prove,  that  the  prophetic 
spirit  possessed  by  the  Church  in  the  beginning  \vas 
not  withdrawn  from  her. 

Josephus  is  also  contradicted  by  Philo,  the  Alexandri- 
an Jew,  born  probably  not  long  before  the  Christian  era. 
For,  describing  the  origin  of  the  Septuagint,  the  latter 
says,'  that  the  interpreters  were  divinely  inspired,  hav- 
ing every  word  throughout  the  version  dictated  to  them 
by  the  Holy  Ghost.  What  bearing  this  must  have  on 
the  testimony  of  Josephus  will  be  understood  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  Septuagint  was  made  more  than  a 
century  after  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  and  at  least  three 

'  Luke.  XX.  6.  ^  John  vii.  52. 

3  Acts  xxi.  10  ;  xi.  28.  4  /)^  y^^^  Movsis,  lib.  II. 


i86  TJie  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

full  centuries  before  Josephus  wrote.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  add,  that  what  Philo  has  said  regarding  the  in- 
fluence, under  which  the  Septuagint  was  written,  was 
believed  by  several  of  the  early  Christian  Fathers. 

It  is  also  in  evidence,  that  if  Josephus  meant  to  say 
that  afler  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  there  were  no  proph- 
ets, or  that  it  was  uncertain  whether  there  were  any 
such,  he  is  contradicted  by  the  Talmudic  and  rabbini- 
cal writers.  But  before  proof  of  this  is  submitted,  a  word 
or  two  must  be  said  about  the  belief  of  these  writers  re- 
garding prophecy.  They  distinguish  a  great  many 
grades  of  prophecy,  but  these  distinctions  are  often  so 
finel}'  drawn  as  to  escape  the  grasp  of  ordinary  intel- 
lects. And  in  fact  they  may  all  be  reduced  to  three,  as 
is  done  by  Duvoisin,'  on  whose  statements  the  following 
remarks  are  based.  The  three  grades  of  prophecy,  as 
described  by  rabbinical  writers,  are  prophecy  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  prophecy  by  Urim  and  Thummim,  and 
prophecy  by  Bath  Kol — daughter  of  a  voice  or  daughter 
voice.  In  all  of  these  grades  the  Rabbins  make  several 
distinctions,*which  simph'  indicate  the  various  wa3-s  in 
which  divine  communications  may  be  made  in  each  grade. 
The  first  and  highest  gi'ade  is  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  such 
as  Moses  was  favored  with,  who  while  awake  perceived 
the  I'evelation  in  his  mind  without  angelic  intervention, 
not  enigmatically  but  clearly,  and  unlike  other  prophets 
remaining  unaffected  by  horror,  undisturbed  bv  terror, 
and  unassailed  by  languor,  and  speaking  as  a  friend  with 
a  friend,  and  being  invested  whenever  he  wished  with 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  constantly  possessed  of  the  proph- 
et's gift."*  The  next  highest  grade  of  prophecy  is  that 
by  Urim  and  Thumim,  the  breast-plate  worn  b}'  the  High 
Priest,  by  looking  on  which  he  was  enabled  to  receive 
divine    revelations.       Maimonides  ^    has    described    the 

'   Ohsoi'al.   'm  Pug.  Fidei  Raymundi  Martini,  loi,  102. 

^  -Nfaimonides  in  Tract.  De  Fund.  Legis,  c.  7. 

'  In  yad  CJnizakah,  book  on  vessels  of  the  Sanctuary,  c.   10. 


TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  187 

manner  in  which  the  High  Priest  prophesied  by  Urim 
and  Thummim.  He  also  in  the  same  place  says  that  these 
two  grades  of  prophecy  ceased- in  the  time  of  the  second 
temple;  although  the  Urmi  and  Thummim  were  used 
therein  to  complete  the  vestments  worn  by  the  High 
Priest,  but  not  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  in  this  way 
communications,  because  the  Holy  Ghost  was  not  there. 
The  third  and  lowest  grade  of  prophecy  was  called  by 
the  Jews  Bath  Kol — daughter  of  a  voice,  or  daughter- 
voice, — and  took  the  place  of  the  other  two  grades,  when 
they  had  ceased  after  the  erection  of  the  second  temple. 
Duvoisin  '  cites  several  rabbinical  writers  in  order  to 
explain  what  is  meant  by  it.  Thus  one  ^  says,  that  it  is 
not  a  voice  from  heaven,  but  one  proceeding  from  the 
midst  of  such  a  voice,  as  happens  for  instance  when  a 
person,  after  a  strong  blow  on  something,  hears  from  a 
distance  a  sound  from  a  sound  thus  produced.  And  an- 
other' says  that,  according  to  the  belief  of  R.  Moses,  it 
is  Bath  Kol,  when  a  man  is  possessed  of  such  a  vivid  im- 
agination that  he  thinks  he  hears  a  voice  outside  his 
soul.  Such,  R.  Moses  believes,  was  the  visitation  ac- 
corded to  Hagar,  and  Manoah*  with  his  wife,  none  of 
whom  was  a  prophet;  but  the  word  which  they  heard, 
or  which  came  into  their  mind,  was  like  Bath  Kol  (of 
which  our  sages  make  mention),  which  is  of  such  a  na- 
ture that  it  can  happen  to  one  not  prepared  for  prophe- 
cv.  Again,  sometimes  the  divine  will  is  not  manifested 
to  man,  neither  by  prophecy  nor  by  a  prophet,  but  by 
divine  inspiration,  such  as  the  inspiration  of  Abigail, 
that  she  should  go  forth  to  meet  David.  David  himself 
knew  that  the  inspiration  was  divine,  for  he  therefore 
said  :  Blessed  be  the  Lord  the  God  of  Israel,  Who  sent  this 
day  to  vieet  nie!'    In  fine,  Ubaldi, '  appeals  to  such  Jewish 

'  p.  102.  -  En  Is7-ael  ad  Tract.  Talviud. 

•'  R.  Schemthob.  C.  42,  T.  2.  More  Nebochim. 

"  Nabal.  here  named  from  Maon  where  he  lived. 

f'  I.   Kings  XXV.,  32;  Sepher  Ikkarim.  "  Introd.  in  S.  Script.,  li.  428. 


1 88  Tlie  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testavient. 

writers  as  Juda  the  Levite,  author  of  the  book  of  Cozri, 
written  more  than  ten  hundred  years  ago,  to  Maimoni- 
des,  Bechai,  Abarbanel,  etc.,  to  prove  that,  after  all  other 
grades  of  prophecy  had  ceased  in  the  second  temple,  as 
the  Jews  say,  Bath  Kol  continued  and  was  really  divine 
inspiration.  Prideaux '  ridicules  Bath  Kol,  comparing  it 
to  the  divination  practised  among  the  heathen,  and  en- 
deavors to  prove  his  opinion  by  citing  one  of  the  many 
fabulous  incidents  with  which  the  Talmud  abounds. 
But  he  forgot  that  the  incident  is  dated  after,  not  before 
the  birth  of  Christ,  and  consequently  that  the  communi- 
cation in  question  came,  if  it  came  at  all,  from  Beelzebub, 
not  from  Bath  Kol. 

It  thus  becomes  evident,  that  accordingto  the  Jewish 
writers  there  were  several  grades  of  prophecy,  and  that 
what  was  spoken  or  written  by  a  prophet  was  more  or  less 
authoritative,  according  to  the  kind  of  inspiration  with 
which  he  was  favored.  For  this  reason  the  writings  of 
Moses  were  of  the  highest  authority,  and  treated  with  a 
degree  of  respect  not  accorded  to  those  of  other  proph- 
ets, which  were  considered  of  less  authority,  as  emanating- 
from  a  lower  grade  of  prophecv  ;  while  writings  which 
owed  their  origin  to  the  mysterious  influence  exercised 
by  Bath  Kol  were  not  considered  worthy  of  the  same 
credit  as  those  of  the  two  preceding  classes,  but  3-et 
could  not  be  excluded  from  the  collection  of  sacred 
writings,  because  like  them  the}'  had  been  after  all 
supernaturally  dictated.  And  just  as  writings  of  the 
second  class  were  still  divine,  though  not  considered 
worthy  of  the  same  credit  as  those  of  the  first,  so  writ- 
ings of  the  third  class — generall}'  the  result  of  communi- 
cations made  by  Bath  Kol, — were  also  still  divine,  though 
not  deemed  worthy  of  the  same  credit  as  those  of  the 
second.  Possibly  this  may  have  been  what  was  meant 
by  Josephus.  when  he  said  that  books  written  after  the 

'  Connex.,  ii.,  215. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  189 

reign  of   Artaxcrxes  were  not   deemed  worthy  of    the 
same  credit  as  those  written  up  till  that  time.     How- 
ever this  may  be,  the  supposition  seems  warranted  by 
the  fact  that,  as  we  have  seen,  he  has  made  the  same 
use  of  the  former  as  he  has  of  the  latter.     Tt  may  be  that 
Josephus  was  induced  to  express  himself  as  he  did  in 
reference  to  the  prophets,  because  he  believed  that  after 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  there  were  no  prophets  so  emi- 
nently such,  as  those  who  appeared  before  that  time,  as 
Isaias,  Jeremias,  Ezechiel,  etc.,  who  under  the  most  extra- 
ordinary circumstances  w^ere  commissioned  by  God  to 
awaken  the  piety  of  His  people,  and  announce  the  calam- 
ities that  would  befall  them  as  a  nation,  unless  they  re- 
pented of  their  iniquities.     If  this  was  the  meaning  of 
Josephus,  he  was  no  doubt  correct,  for  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  after  the  time  specified  no  prophet  appeared 
whose  vocation  was  attested  by  such  ample  credentials, 
or  rendered  so  necessary  by  the  conditions  of  the  times, 
as  that  of   those  whose  mission  immediately  preceded 
and  continued  to  the  end  of  the  captivity.     In  this  case 
the  statement  of  Josephus  would    be  quite   consistent 
with  the  divine  origin  claimed  for  the  deutero  books. 
For  no  one  pretends,  at  least  it  cannot  be  shown,  that 
even  all  the  proto  books  were  written  by  prophets  of 
this  eminent  class,  or  authors  inspired  in  the  same  way 
and  to  the  same  degree,  since  to  write  some  of  these 
books  it  certainly  was  not  necessary  that  the  authors 
should  have  been  able  to  predict  future  events,  or  to 
have    been    prophets    in    the  strict  sense  of   the  word, 
but  solely  that  they  should  have  been  moved  to  write, 
and    while  doing   so,  guided    by  the  Holy  Ghost.       If 
therefore  a  prophet  inspired,  but  unable  to  forecast  the 
future,  could  write  a  divine  book  before-  the  reign  of 
Artaxerxes,  why  should  not  a  prophet  of  the  same  class 
have  been  able  to  write  a  divine  book  after  that  time? 
What    was    possible    before    was    possible   after    that 


igo  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

<late,  and  Josephus  has  said  nothing  to  the  contrary. 
But  let  it  be  supposed  that  those  who  advocate  the 
contracted  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  are  correct  in 
interpreting  the  words  of  Josephus,  yet  it  is  evident 
that  his  testimony,  so  far  as  it  is  unfavorable  to  the  deu- 
tero  books,  is  of  very  little  account.  For  as  a  confessed 
Pharisee,  '  being  a  member  of  a  sect  whose  doctrinal 
and  moral  principles  were  condemned  by  our  Lord,  ^  he 
cannot  be  regarded  as  an  authorized  and  reliable  expo- 
nent of  the  belief  commonly  held  b}-  the  Jews.  It  will 
not  do  to  say,  with  some  who,  without  any  positive 
proof,  hold  that  the  twenty -two  divine  books  of  Josephus 
are  those  at  present  on  the  Jewish  canon,  that  the  Flavian 
statement,  which  is  supposed  to  exclude  the  deutero 
books  from  the  collection  of  divine  writings,  involves  a 
mere  matter  of  fact,  on  which  Josephus  is  competent  to 
speak  ;  and  that  his  testimony  on  the  point  is  admissible, 
€ven  though  his  religious  belief  was  not  in  all  respects 
identical  with  that  of  his  more  orthodox  countrymen. 
For  that  statement,  whether  or  not  it  involves  a  matter 
of  fact,  deals  with  a  question  of  doctrine,  that  is,  whether 
certain  books,  regarded  very  generally  in  the  time  of 
Josephus  and  ever  since  as  strictly  canonical,  were, 
when  Josephus  wrote,  commonh^  so  regarded  among  the 
Jews,  a  point  which  has  to  be  taken  into  account  in  pass- 
ing judgment  on  these  books.  The  position  of  Josephus 
in  the  case  under  consideration  is  exactly  that  of  Euse- 
bius,  ^  when,  referring  to  the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  he 
stated  that  "  it  is  considered  spurious."  This  statement 
of  Eusebius,  like  that  of  Josephus,  might  be  regarded  as 
involving  a  mere  question  of  fact,  but  like  that  of 
Josephus  it  also  involves  a  question  of  doctrine,  namel}', 
is  the  Epistle  of  James  spurious?  All  admit,  however, 
that  Eusebius  was  mistaken  as  to  the  doctrine  as  well  as 

'  Life,  §  2.  2   ]\iatt.  v.  20  ;  xvi.  I2  ;  xxiii.  13-35. 

^  Hist.,  B.  ii.,  c.  23. 


TJie  Cano)i  of  the  Old  Testament.  191 

the  fact.     Might  not  the  same  thing  have  happened  to 
Josephus? 

But  it  may,  perhaps  should,  be  admitted  that  Josephus, 
though  in  error  as  to  the  doctrine,  was  right  in  regard 
to  the  fact,  if  he  merely  intended  to  express  the  belief 
entertained  by  the  rabbinical  doctors  of  his  own  age. 
For  it  is  well  known  that,  when  he  wrote,  the  profound 
veneration  in  which  the  Jews  had  formerly  held  the 
Greek  version  was  being  superseded  by  a  feeling  of 
abhorrence — a  consequence  of  the  success  with  which 
their  Christian  adversaries  employed  that  version,  and 
especially  its  deutero  books,  which  laid  hardly  less  stress 
on  practices  almost  distinctivel}'  Christian,  as  celibacy, 
almsdeeds,  angelic  ministrations,  mortification  of  the 
senses,  prayers  for  the  dead,  works  of  penance,  etc.,  than 
did  the  New  Testament  itself.  "  These  books,"  says  a 
learned  contributor  to  the  Dublin  Review,  '  in  a  rapid 
survey  of  the  principal  points  connected  with  the  present 
controversy,  "  were  in  all  probability  a  part  of  the  Jew- 
ish canon,  but  the  Jews  perceived  that  they  were  paving 
the  way  for  Christianity  and  dropped  them."  Danko  ' 
is  of  the  same  opinion,  but  thinks  that  "  it  is  impossible 
to  say  at  what  time  the  Jews  excluded  from  their  canon 
those  additional  books  contained  in  the  canon  of  the 
Catholic  Church."  The  time,  however,  when  the  Jewish 
teachers  decided  on  taking  this  step,  was,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  towards  the  close  of  the  first  or  about  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century.  For,  even  before  that 
time  the  progress  of  the  Church  had  been  such  as  to  ex- 
cite alarm  and  provoke  bitter  opposition  on  the  part  of 
the  Synagogue,  an  opposition  which  had  already  cu- 
mulated in  the  mart3'rdom  of  Stephen  and  in  a  great 
persecution  at  Jerusalem,  and  had  armed  Saul  with  a 
commission  from  the  High  Priest  to  proceed  to  Damas- 
cus, and    there  arrest    and    drag   to  Jerusalem    all    the 

'  Vol.  xxi  ,  p.  150.     '  De  S.  Script,  ejusqne  interpret.,  Comvtent.,  p.  34. 


192  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Christian  Jews  he  could  lind.  Under  these  circumstanc- 
es is  it  unreasonable  to  suppose  that,  as  the  destruction 
of  every  copy  of  the  Septuagint — the  Bible  generally 
used  by  the  Christians — was  not  possible,  means  were 
soon  taken  to  bring  discredit  on  that  version,  as  one  of 
the  principal  elements  in  the  rapid  spread  of  the  new 
religion?  Its  texts  could  not  be  corrupted  by  its 
enemies,  neither  could  the}-  to  an)"  extent  stop  or  restrict 
its  circulation.  But  they  could  say,  it  did  not  fairly 
represent  the  original,  and  this  they  did  say.  They 
could  also  mutilate  the  sacred  roll  of  books  in  their  own 
possession,  then  solemnly  decide  that  all  the  portions 
thus  lopped  off,  but  still  adhering  to  the  Septuagint, 
were  apocryphal.  And  where  is  the  honest  critic  who, 
after  carefully  weighing  all  the  circumstances,  will  ven- 
ture to  say  that  they  did  not  do  so? 

That  they  did  do  so,  the  remarks  already  made  in  con- 
nection with  the  testimony  of  Josephus  leave  no  room 
to  doubt,  and  the  conclusion  thus  reached  is  further 
confirmed  by  Justin,  born  probably  about  the  beginning 
of  the  second  century.  For  in  his  dialogue  with  Try- 
phon  the  Jew,  '  he  accuses  the  Jewish  teachers,  first,  of 
contradicting  the  interpretation  of  the  seventy  Elders  who 
had  translated  the  Hebrew^  Scriptures,  second,  of  lopping 
off  from  that  interpretation  many  Scriptures,  adding  that 
he  knew  those  scriptures  zvere  denied  by  the  Jezvs ;  that 
he  would  make  no  use  of  such  lopped  off  Scriptures 
in  the  matter  under  discussion,  but  would  meet  Tryphon 
on  his  own  ground,  bv  quoting  only  such  Scriptures  as 
the  Jews  admitted.  Then  being  challenged  bv  Tryphon 
to  mention  some  of  the  Scriptures  which  had  thus  been 
lopped  off,  he  produced  as  proof  of  his  statement  a  few 
texts  establishing  the  divinity  of  Christ,  the  point  he 
was  then  arguing  with  Trypho.  Evidently  his  charge 
against  the  Jewish  teachers  is  so  direct  and  sweeping, 

'  >>  71. 


Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstainoit.  193 

that  though,  in  answer  to  Trypho's  challenge,  he  con- 
sidered that  charge  proved  by  referring  to  only  a  few- 
texts  bearing  on  the  question  at  issue,  but  which  the 
Jews  had  misinterpreted,  it  implies  that  he  believed  the 
Jewish  teachei's  guilty,  not  merely  of  misrepresenting 
the  sense  of  single  texts,  but  of' having  eliminated  entire 
books  and  portions  of  books  from  the  sacred  volume. 

It  therefore  follows,  that  the  Synagogue,  perceiving 
that  the  rapid  diffusion  of  Christian  principles,  not  only 
in  Judea,  but  wherever  Greek  was  spoken,  was  due  in  a 
great  measure  to  the  use  that  was  made  of  the  Septua- 
gint,  and  observing  that  the  doctrines  inculcated  in  the 
deutero  books  found  their  logical  development  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  concluded  at  last  in  self  defense 
to  withdraw  the  sanction  or  toleration  all  along  enjoyed 
by  the  Alexandrine  version  and  all  that  version  con- 
tained. Thus  that  version,  so  long  used  for  private 
devotion  and  the  liturgical  services  of  the  Synagogue^ 
was  at  last  anathematized;  and  as  a  Greek  translation 
had  become  necessar}-  for  almost  all  Jews,  whether  in  or 
out  of  Judea;  the  Septuagint  was  soon  supplanted  among 
them  by  other  translations  in  the  same  language,  enjoying 
rabbinical  sanction  and  generally  devoid  of  all  those  ob- 
jectionable books,  of  which  all  Hebrew  copies  had  beeui 
carefully  withdrawn,  or  which  had  been  originally  writ- 
ten in  the  unlucky  but  inevitable  language  of  the  Greeks. 

Such  action,  finally  consummated  at  a  time  when  the 
light,  which  had  so  long  guided  the  High  Priest  of  the 
Old  Law,  had  been  alread}^  transfen-ed  to  the  High 
Priest  of  the  New,  with  a  flame  not  only  brighter,  but 
inextinguishable,  could  bind  no  one  but  those  who  con- 
sented to  be  bound  by  it  But  from  that  day  to  this, 
not  one  of  the  deutero  books  has  ever  been  found  on 
the  Hebrew  canon,  or  considered  worthy  of  a  place 
thereon  by  a  single  rabbinical  writer. 

B}-  the  time  that  Josephus  wrote,  though  both  he  and 


194  ^/^^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Philo  cited  the  Septuagint  even  where  it  differs  from  the 
Hebrew,'  the  opposition  to  the  Alexandrine  version  had 
probably  been  commenced  by  the  Jewish  teachers. 
Among  the  various  plans  adopted  by  them  for  suppres- 
sing that  version,  at  least  among  their  own  people,  was 
the  declaration  that,  as  Professor  Smith  has  observed, 
it  was  a  sin  to  read  its  deutero  books,  ^  and  no  doubt 
the  further  declaration,  that  books  written  after  the 
reign  of  Artaxerxes  were  not  so  worthy  of  credit  as 
those  written  before.  So  that  the  remark  of  Josephus 
about  the  former  class  of  books  may  be  true,  if  intended 
to  apply  to  the  opinion  taught  by  the  rabbinical  doctors 
of  his  own  age ;  but  it  by  no  means  expresses  the  prac- 
tical belief  which  prevailed  among  them  during  the 
whole  previous  period,  in  which  the  Alexandrine  version, 
with  all  its  contents,  was  universally  used  by  all  Jews 
who  understood  Greek,  whether  in  or  out  of  Palestine. 
For  from  nearly  three  centuries  before,  and  until  far  in 
the  first  century  after  the  birth  of  Christ,  by  these  same 
doctors,  as  we  have  already  seen,  that  venerable  version 
was  tolerated  if  not  approved  in  Jerusalem  as  well  as  in 
Alexandria,  and,  indeed,  wherever  else  Greek  was  the 
only  language  in  which  the  Jews  could  read  or  understand 
the  Scriptures.  Had  not  Professor  Smith  good  reason 
for  asserting,  when  speaking  of  "  the  Rabbins  of  Pales- 
tine," that  "  Their  tradition,  therefore,  does  not  conclu- 
sively determine  the  question  of  the  canon  "  ?  ^  Yet  he  is 
forced  to  confess,  "  that  the  early  Protestants,  for  reasons 
very  intelligible  at  their  time,  were  content  simpl}-  to 
accept  the  canon  as  it  came  to  them  from  the  Jews,"  ' 
the  principal  reason  being, because  "  the  Reformers  and 
their  successors,  up  to  the  present  time,  when  all  our 
Protestant  versions  were  fixed,  were  for  all  purposes  of 

1  Walton,  Prolog.,   ix.  37. 

'i   The  Old  Test  in  ike  Jew.  Church,  p.  154. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  147.  •*  Ibid. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  195 

learning  in  the  hands  of  the  Rabbins."  '  Who  will  say 
that  in  this  case  the  two  parties — the  Rabbins  and  the 
Reformers — the  teachers  and  the  pupils,  were  not  well 
paired  ?  But  what  a  confession !  Can  anything  be 
conceived  more  disgraceful  or  humiliating  than  the 
position,  in  which  the  Reformers  thus  placed  themselves  ? 
How  the  crafty  Rabbins  must  have  chuckled,  when  they 
succeeded  in  imposing  their  own  mutilated  canon  on 
their  Protestant  dupes ! 

•  Ibid.,  44. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


The  Canon  among  the  Schismatical  Greeks. 

We  have  next  to  inquire  what  canon  has  been  adopted 
bv  schismatics.  By  schismatics  are  here  meant  the 
members  of  those  religious  communities  which,  unhke 
many  ancient  and  modern  sects,  profess  generally  the 
creed,  and  practise  the  religious  worship  approved  by 
the  Church,  but  are  excluded  from  her  communion, 
because  they  refuse  to  recognize  the  supremacy  of  the 
Pope,  and  persist  in  maintaining  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
proceeds  from  the  Father  alone,  or  that  the  Redeemer 
has  but  one  nature,  or  one  will,  or  a  double  personality. 
It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  schism,  which  is  a 
rupture  of  communion  with  the  visible  head  of  the 
Church,  leads  sooner  or  later  to  heresy,  the  sin  commit- 
ted by  those  who  reject  one  or  more  of  the  doctrines 
taught  by  the  Church.  So  that  the  schismatic,  if  not  a 
heretic  in  the  first  instance,  usually  becomes  such  in  the 
end.  But  as  the  word  is  here  applied  it  designates  the 
great  body  of  the  Greeks,  the  Jacobites,  the  Copts,  the 
Abyssinians,  the  Nestorians,  the  Armenians,  and  the 
Russians,  most  of  whom;  while  professing  almost  all 
the  doctrines  of  the  Church;  now,  in  consequence  of 
the  change  in  their  creed,  refuse  to  hear  the  voice  of  her 
chief  Pastor.  Among  sevei'al  of  them  the  work  of  con- 
version from  paganism  to  Christianity  commenced  in 
the  first  century.  Among  all  of  them,  except  the  Rus- 
sians, who  were  not  brought  into  the  Christian  fold  until 


TJic  Canon  of  the  O.  T.  among  the  Schisniaties.       197 

the  ninth  century,  the  cross  was  planted  not  later  than 
the  fourth  centur}-.  Along  with  the  Gospel,  they  all 
received  the  Old  Testament  as  contained  in  the  Septua- 
gint;  which  had  been  current  among  the  Hellenists; 
and  even  at  least  tolerated,  if  not  approved,  by  the 
Palestinians,  for  three  full  centuries  before  the  apostles 
delivered  it  to  their  converts;  or  if  not  in  the  actual 
Septuagint,  in  versions  from  it  into  the  various  lan- 
guages spoken  by  these  converts.  And  as  kingdom 
after  kingdom  took  its  place  in  the  Christian  common- 
wealth, it  was  at  once  supplied  with  a  copy  of  the 
Septuagint,  or  such  a  version  thereof  as  would  bring  to 
the  knowledge  of  its  people  the  divine  truths  which  the 
Septuagint  contained.  Thus  the  copies  of  the  sacred 
Scripture  distributed  from  the  beginning  throughout 
Christendom  contained  all  those  books  found  on  the 
Tridentine  canon,  the  only  exception  being  that  Syriac 
version  called  the  Peschito,  which,  having  been  made 
from  the  Hebrew  probably  in  the  first  century,  if  not 
before,  by  a  converted  or  an  unconverted  Jew,  was 
adopted  by  the  Christians  of  Syria.  As  a  Svriac  equi- 
valent for  the  Hebrew  Bible,  it  contained  only  such  books 
as  were  extant  in  Hebrew,  and  therefore  exhibited  a 
less  extended  canon  than  that  contained  in  the  Septua- 
gint. It  comprised  only  the  proto  books,  but  it  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  those,  among  whom  it  was 
current, believed  that  those  books  alone  constituted  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  For  it  is  well  known  that 
this  Syriac  version,  before  the  time  of  St.  Ephrem  (d. 
379),  was  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  the  books  which 
the  Septuagint  had,  but  it  had  not. 

It  has  indeed  already  been  shown  '  that  the  Septuagint, 
when  it  was  delivered  by  the  apostles  to  the  Christian 
churches,  contained  not  only  the  books  on  the  present 
Hebrew  canon,   but  the  deutero  portions   of   the    Old 

'  Chapters  v.,  x. 


198  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament 

Testament.  In  fact,  along  with  the  faith  each  nation  re- 
ceived a  copy  of  the  Alexandrine  version,  or  a  transla- 
tion of  it,  and  no  other,  from  those  who  were  engaged 
in  propagating  the  principles  of  the  Gospel.  And 
whether  those  who  were  so  engaged  were  the  apostles 
or  their  legitimate  successors  immediate  or  remote,  this 
acceptance  of  the  Alexandrine  version,  together  with  the 
Christian  creed  by  all  nations,  till  then  pagan,  continued 
up  to  the  sixteenth  century.  Yet,  while  the  faith  was 
thus  extending  the  limits  of  its  empire  in  all  directions, 
no  authoritative  voice  was  raised  to  warn  the  faithful 
that  the  copy  of  the  Old  Testament  which  all  were  using, 
East  and  West,  contained  anything  but  the  genuine 
word  of  God,  or  that  any  book  therein  was  less  vener- 
able, less  scriptural,  than  what  was  contained  in  the 
Hebrew  original. 

What  is  here  insisted  on  is  admitted  by  the  most 
eminent  Protestant  writers.  But  to  put  the  matter 
beyond  all  doubt,  it  is  necessary  to  produce  here  the 
testimony  of  some  of  these  writers  who  have  expressed 
themselves  on  the  point  now  under  consideration, 
though  in  doing  so  we  may  have,  perhaps,  to  repeat 
some  statements  already  made.  Walton, '  referring  to 
the  deutero  books,  sa3'S,  that  "  the  Church  received 
these  books  with  the  rest  of  the  Scriptures  from  the 
Hellenistic  Jews."  If  from  the  Hellenistic  Jews,  it 
must  have  been  by  the  hands  of  her  founders,  the  apos- 
tles, several  of  whom,  if  not  all,  in  their  use  of  and  in 
their  relation  to  the  Septuagint,  were  Hellenists.  He 
has  no  doubt,  that  the  Septuagint,  in  which  the  Chris- 
tians were  first  introduced  to  these  books,  is  the  only 
one  of  the  early  Greek  versions  that  has  come  down  to  our 
time.  "  The  Septuagint,"  he  remarks,"  "  as  it  was  public- 
ly used  in  the  synagogues  and  the  churches,  and  is 
still  the  only  one  read  in  the  churches,  is  the  only  one 

1  Prolog,  ix.,  13.  2  ji^id^  ig_ 


Among  the  Schisj/iatics.  igg 

that  remains  at  this  day."  And  "  this  version  (the 
Septuagint)  was  and  still  is  in  constant  use,  espec- 
ially in  the  Greek  Church."  '  Furthermore,  "  the 
Christian  Church  and  her  chief  doctors,  by  whom  the 
version  of  the  Seventy  was  greatly  esteemed,  read  it, 
or  versions  of  it  (the  first  Syriac  alone  excepted),  publicly 
in  the  churches.  It  was  it  they  publicly  explained  to 
the  people ;  it  was  on  it  they  commented  ;  it  was  by  it 
they  crushed  the  heresies  and  errors  of  their  day.  It 
was  it  they  illustrated  in  their  writings  ;  some  of  them, 
as  was  the  case  with  St.  Augustine,  knew  not  even 
whether  there  was  another  version  besides  the  Greek."  - 
He  further  affirms, '  that  "  the  Greek  Church,  as  it  had 
no  other  from  the  beginning,  has  preserved  the  same 
(Septuagint)  to  the  present  time,  nor  even  were  it 
united  to  the  Roman  Church,  would  it  have  any  other, 
as  we  have  just  learned  from  the  principal  writers  of 
the  Roman  Church."  The  Greek  Church  here  referred 
to  is  the  schismatical.  It  has  had  all  along  the  Septua- 
gint and  no  other  copy  of  the  Scriptures,  and  it  has  it 
still.  In  admitting  this,  Walton  grants  all  for  which  we 
contend,  that  the  schismatical  Greeks,  from  the  time  they 
became  Christians,  while  they  were  united  in  commun- 
ion with  the  Roman  Pontiff,  and  since  they  sepai'ated 
from  that  communion,  have  at  all  times  revered  the  deu- 
tero  books  as  the  word  of  God.  We  will  see,  as  we 
proceed,  that  Walton's  statement  is  proved  by  the 
solemn  and  reiterated  decisions  of  the  highest  ecclesias- 
tical tribunals  among  those  schismatical  Greeks. 

But  let  us  hear  Prideaux,  a  writer  whose  pen  was  in- 
capable of  tracing  a  single  civil  word  on  those  occasions, 
when  his  subject  or  spleen  induced  him  to  notice  the 
"  Romanists  "  or  "  Papists  ,"  as  he  usually  designated 
the  members  of  the  Catholic  Church.  "  The  Evangelists 
and  Apostles  (says  he),  who  were  the  hoi}'  penmen  of 

'   Ibid.,  35.  ^  Ibid..  40.  «  Ibid.,  56. 


200  Tlie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament- 

the  New  Testament  Scriptures,  all  quoted  out  of  it  (the 
Septuagint),  and  so  did  all  the  primitive  Fathers  after 
them.  All  the  Greek  churches  used  it,  and  the  Latins 
had  no  other  copy  of  those  Scriptures  in  their  language 
till  Jerome's  time,  but  what  was  translated  from  it. 
Whatsoever  comments  were  written  on  any  part  of 
them,  this  was  alwa^'S  the  text,  and  the  explications  were 
made  according  to  it ;  and  when  other  nations  were  con- 
verted to  Christianity,  and  had  those  Scriptures  trans- 
lated for  their  use  into  their  several  languages,  these 
versions  were  all  made  from  the  Septuagint,  as  the  Illv- 
rian,  the  Gothic,  the  Arabic,  the  Ethiopic,  the  Arme- 
nian, and  the  Syriac.  "  '  Little  did  Prideaux  suspect 
that  in  writing  thus  he  was  condemning  King  James' 
Version,  and  commending  the  Vulgate  of  the  "  Roman- 
ists." For  the  Septuagint  and  all  the  versions  made 
from  it  contained  the  deutero  books ;  and  the  Latins,  as 
well  after  as  before  Jerome's  time,  had  no  other  copies 
of  the  Scriptures  than  those,  which  included  these  same 
books ;  whereas  these  books,  after  being  first  degraded 
in  the  English  as  well  as  in  the  other  Protestant  Bibles, 
were  very  generally  flung  overboard  at  last  b}^  the 
editors  of  these  Bibles,  This  was  at  least  logical,  for 
the  reformers  could  not  well  protest  against  the  religion 
of  their  forefathers  without  rejecting  the  canon  of  Chris- 
tian antiquity.  Another  learned  Protestant''  admits 
"  that  the  only  copies  of  the  Scriptures  in  existence  for 
the  first  three  hundred  years  after  Christ,  either  among 
the  Jews  or  Christians  of  Greece,  Italy,  or  Africa,  con- 
tained these  books  (the  deutero)  without  an}-  mark  or 
distinction  that  we  know  of.  "  This  is  as  much  as  to 
sa}',  that  for  the  first  three  centuries,  throughout  Chris- 
tendom, or  the  greatest  part  of  it,  the  faithful  were 
allowed  by  their  teachers  to  regard  the  deutero  as  of 

'   Connexion,  part  ii.,  p.  40. 

*  Dr.  Wright,  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  Kitto's  Cyclop.,  art.  Deuteron. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  201 

equal  authorit}'  with  the  proto  books.  And  it  is  certain, 
that  until  the  sixteenth  century  no  distinction  had  been 
made  between  the  two  classes  of  books,  by  any  conven- 
tion of  ecclesiastics  whose  judgment  any  Christian  was 
bound  to  respect.  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith, '  re- 
ferring to  the  Septuagint,  frankly  confesses,  "  that  it 
spread  contemporaneously  with  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  through  all  parts  of  Christendom  where  Greek 
was  understood.  "  And  let  it  be  here  observed  that  the 
Septuagmt,  containing,  be  it  remembered,  every  one  of 
the  deutero  books,  has  all  along  ever  since  been  used 
"  wherever  Greek  was  understood.  "  It  mattered  not 
whether  the  Christians,  who  were  brought  to  the 
knowledge  of  God's  written  word  through  the  medium 
of  that  language,  admitted  or  rejected  the  supremacy  of 
the  Roman  Pontiff ;  it  was  always  Ihe  Septuagint  as  we 
now  have  it  that  circulated  among  them.  They  might 
object  to  this  or  that  doctrine,  this  or  that  practice  ap- 
proved by  the  Latin  Church.  But  as  Christian  communi- 
ties, they  never  rejected  a  single  book  contained  in  the 
copy  of  the  Old  Testament  used  by  that  Church. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Roman  See,  as  represented 
by  its  Bishop,  and  to  which  the  entire  East,  until  a  por- 
tion of  it  was  involved  in  schism,  as  well  as  the  entire 
West  looked  for  guidance,  has,  ever  since  its  institu- 
tion, ignored  any  distinction  between  the  proto  and 
deutero  writings.  This  will  be  shown  as  we  proceed. 
And  it  is  well  known,  also,  that  in  this  matter  there 
never  has  been  any  difference  of  opinion  between  Latin 
and  Greek  especially,  whether  united  under  the  same 
Pastor,  or  constituting  distinct  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tions. In  fact,  when,  as  was  often  the  case,  thev  met  in 
council  to  adjust  doctrinal  or  disciplinarv  difficulties, 
the  canon  of  Scripture  never  appears  to  have  provoked 
discussion,  as  if  a  common  belief  on  the  point  rendered 

'    The  Old  Testament  in  ihe  Jeiuish  Church,  p.  33. 


202  TJic  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

such  discussion  unnecessary.  But  when  one  of  the 
parties  bv  itself  or  both  together  believed  that  the  time 
had  come  for  an  explicit  declaration  regarding-  the 
canon,  it  is  worth}-  of  notice,  that  what  was  taught  at 
Rome  on  that  subject  was  reechoed  at  Constantinople. 
It  was  so  in  the  seventh  century,  at  the  Council  in 
Trullo, '  when  the  Carthaginian  canons, "  one  of  which 
included  the  deutero  Scriptures  among  the  canonical 
books,  were  reaffirmed.  It  was  so  also  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  at  the  Council  of  Florence,  where  Latins  and 
Greeks  were,  in  the  instructions  prepared  for  thejacob- 
ites,  directed  that  the  deutero  as  well  as  the  proto  books 
should  be  received  as  written  under  "  the  inspii'ation  of 
the  Holy  Ghost."  To  the  canon  then  proclaimed  the 
Greeks  have  never  since  objected,  although  hardly  had 
the  Council  concluded  its  labors,  when  they  made  their 
last  plunge  into  schism. 

The  canon  sanctioned  at  Florence  was  again  affirmed 
in  the  following  century  at  Trent,  but  with  greater  sol- 
emnity, because  demanded  by  more  urgent  circumstanc- 
es. But  its  publication  called  forth  no  word  of  protest 
or  disapproval  from  the  Greek  schismatical  Church, 
although  efforts  were  made  and  frequently  repeated 
since  by  the  reformers  and  their  successors  to  infect  its 
hierarchy  with  their  own  spirit  as  well  as  their  own 
errors.  Prompted  by  curiosity,  if  not  by  a  less  excus- 
able motive,  Joasaph  II.,  patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
early  in  the  last  half  of  the  sixteenth  centur}-,  sent 
Demetrius  M3'sias,  a  deacon,  to  Wittenberg,  to  learn  the 
principles  of  Protestantism  at  its  very  birth-place.  ^  He 
received  from  Melanchthon  a  Greek  translation  of  the 
Augsburg  confession,  by  Dolscius,  who  was  a  good 
Greek  scholar,  and,  as  a  disciple,  devoted  to  Melanchthon. 
Along  with  this  document  was  a  letter  addressed  by 

'   Beveridge,  Synodikon  Can.,  vol.,  i.  p.,  158.     -   Cone,  in  Tniih,  Canon  II. 
^  Alzog,  Manual  of  Church  Hist.,  iianslat.  by  I'al)i>ch  and  ISyrne,  Vol.,  iii.,. 
P-  463- 


Amo}ig  the  Schismatics.  205 

Melanchthon  to  the  Patriarch  and  congratulating  that 
dignitary,  in  that  "  God  had  preserved  the  Eastern 
Church,  surrounded  by  enemies  so  numerous  and  so 
hostile,  to  the  Christian  name,"  and  assuring  him,  that 
Protestants  had  remained  loyal  to  Holy  Writ,  to  the 
Synods  and  Fathers  of  the  Greek  Church,  eschewing 
all  the  errors  anathematized  by  it,  and  condemning  the 
superstitious  practices  and  idolatrous  worship  introduced 
by  ignorant  Latin  monks.  The  Patriarch  was  therefore 
also  requested  not  to  pay  attention  to  any  evil  reports 
which  might  reach  him  regarding  the  Protestants. 
However,  the  report  of  Deacon  Demetrius  on  the  state 
of  religion  in  the  hot-bed  of  German  Protestantism  must 
have  convinced  the  Patriarch,  that  the  adoption  of  its 
principles  was  not  likely  to  improve  the  morals  of  his 
flock,  for  he  returned  no  answer  to  the  letter  of  Melanch- 
thon. 

Several  years  afterwards,  1573-1575,'  the  Tiibingen 
divines  Jacob  Andrea  and  Martin  Crucius,  a  proficient 
in  Greek,  undismayed  by  the  failure  of  Melanchthon, 
sent  by  David  Ungnad,  an  ardent  admirer  of  the  Refor- 
mation and  representative  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian 
II.  at  the  sublime  Porte,  a  communication  to  the  Patri- 
arch Jeremias  II.  After  some  delay  the  Patriarch  sent 
an  answer  emphatically  repudiating  the  distinctive 
teachings  of  Protestantism,  and  calling  upon  those  who 
believed  them  to  adopt  the  doctrines  contained  in  the 
Bible,  the  seven  holy  synods,  the  writings  of  the  Fathers, 
and  whatever  the  Church  holds,  be  it  written  or  unwrit- 
ten. The  intrepid  divines  rejoined  in  a  letter  of  an 
explanatory  and  controversial  character.  To  this  the 
Patriarch  replied,  1581,  requesting  his  Tubingen  corre- 
spondents to  spare  him  any  further  annoyance,  and 
entreating  them  to  renounce  principles  at  variance  with 
Christian  truth,  and  certain  to  excite  the  vengeance  of 

'   Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom,  vol.  i.  p.  50. 


204       ^'^^^'  Canon  of  the  O.  T.  among  the  Schismaties. 

Heaven  against  those  who  professed  them.  Eleven  of 
the  distinguished  divines  of  Wiirtemberg  undertook  to 
renew  the  correspondence,  but  to  their  plan  for  a  union 
between  Greeks  and  Protestants  the  indignant  Patri- 
arch made  no  reply.  The  irrepressible  Crucius,  fondly 
hoping  that  his  knowledge  of  Greek  might  make  an 
impression  on  the  obdurate  hearts  of  the  haughty  Orien- 
tals, had  translated  into  their  language,  for  the  special 
benefit  of  their  religious  teachers,  as  man}-  Lutheran 
sermons  as  would  fill  four  folio  volumes.  These  were 
dul}^  forwarded  to  the  Patriarch.  What  was  done  with 
them  we  are  unable  to  say.  But  the  Greek  Sj'nod  of 
Jerusalem  (1672),  after  stigmatizing  Calvin's  sys'tem  as 
pestiferous,  and  Luther's  principles  as  the  ravings  of  a 
madman,  vehemently  denounced  the  schemes  of  Crucius 
and  the  Tiibingen  fraternity  as  an  insidious  and  impu- 
dent attempt  at  introducing  among  the  simple  Orientals 
a  creed  which  the  Greek  Church  abhorred  as  strange 
and  heretical.  * 

^  1\\\\\\\\q\,  Momcinenta  Fidei  Eccl.  Orient.,  Pars,  i.,  pp.  330-733. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


The  Canon  of  Cyril  Lucar  and  Metrophanes  Cri- 
TOPULus  Condemned  by  the  Greek  Schismatics. 

Notwithstanding  all  their  efforts  to  secure  the  encour- 
agement or  sympathy  of  the  Greek  schismatics,  the 
Protestants,  therefore,  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury found  that  their  mutilatad  canon  of  Scripture,  as 
well  as  their  other  innovations,  was  not  more  likely  to 
be  tolerated  at  Constantinople  than  at  Rome.  Hardly, 
however,  had  the  seventeenth  century  dawned  on  Chris- 
tendom, when  a  man  appeared  who,  as  Protestants 
generally  believed,  was  destined  either  to  bring  about  a 
union  between  them  and  the  Greeks,  or  divest  the  creed 
of  Photius  of  all  that  rendered  it  unpalatable  to  the 
vitiated  taste  of  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  Anglicans,  and 
other  sectarists  who  had  recently  protested  against 
what  they  complacently  called  the  corruptions  of  Rome. 
This  man  was  Cyril  Lucar,  who  was  born  in  Candia, 
the  ancient  Crete,  then  under  the  government  of  Venice. 
The  date  of  his  birth  is  uncertain.  But  writers  who 
have  studied  his  history  assign  that  event  to  1 568  or  1 572. 
The  milder  rule  under  which  the  Candians  lived,  as 
compared  with  that  of  Constantinople  and  other  places 
governed  by  the  Turks,  had  probably  attracted  many 
learned  Greeks,  and  thus  placed  within  the  reach  of 
Cyril  the  means  of  acquiring  at  least  an  elementary 
education.  To  complete  his  studies  he  went  to  Padua, 
which  also  belonged  to  the  Republic  of  Venice.  Here 
as  in  his  native    island   his    preceptors    were    ardently 


2o6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

attached  to  that  party  among  the   Greeks,  which   was 
opposed  to  all  reconciliation  with  Rome. 

On  leaving  Padua  Cyril  visited  Genoa  and  other 
points  where  Protestant  principles  prevailed,  being 
everywhere  greeted  with  a  cordial  welcome  by  the 
advocates  of  the  Reformation,  and  inspiring  them  with 
the  hope  that  he  was  a  vessel  of  election  for  purging 
Greece  of  superstition, and  providing  its  benighted  peo- 
ple with  evangelical  religion.  Bidding  farewell  to  his 
many  friends  of  the  Protestant  persuasion,  he  proceeded 
to  Alexandria,  where  he  was  ordained  priest  by  the  Pa- 
triarch Melitius  Pega,  an  uncompromising  enemy  of  the 
Papacy.  Cyril,  after  having  been  employed  in  various 
ways,  and  brought  at  least  on  one  occasion  into  contact 
with  the  Jesuits,  against  whom  he  conceived  an  impla- 
cable hatred,  was  at  last,  on  the  death  of  Melitius,  pro- 
moted in  1602  to  the  patriarchal  throne  of  Alexandria. 
Elevated  to  this  lofty  position  he  decided  on  exercising 
his  personal  and  official  influence  in  the  consummation 
of  a  project,  which  he  seems  to  have  long  contemplated 
— the  adoption  of  Calvinism  in  some  form  by  the  schis- 
matical  Greeks.  With  this  object  in  view  he  opened  a 
correspondence  with  Cornelius  Von  Hagen,  Dutch  am- 
bassador at  Constantinople,  David  le  Leu  de  Wilhelm, 
a  Dutch  statesman,  John  Uytenbogaert,  the  Calvinist 
minister  at  the  Hague,  and  George  Abbot,  Anglican 
archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Abbot,  at  the  request  of 
Cyril,  succeeded  in  inducing  King  James  to  admit  to  the 
Universit}'  of  Oxford  Metrophanes  Critopulus,  a  native 
of  Berea,  who,  after  studying  there,  was  on  his  return  to 
spend  some  time  in  Germany,  in  order  to  be  fully 
equipped  for  assisting  in  the  evangelization  of  Greece. 
The  indefatigable  Cyril,  it  seems,  had,  besides  Metro- 
phanes, several  other  young  Greeks  studying  in  Protes- 
tant universities, '  and  destined  to  take  part  in  the  labors 
of  the  same  mission. 

'  Schaff.  C^-eeds  of  Christendom,  vol.  i.,  p.  55. 


Avtong  the  Schismatics.  207 

In  161 3,  a  vacancy  having  occurred  in  the  See  of  Con- 
stantinople, when  the  Patriarch  Timothy  was  driven 
into  exile,  Cyril  was  one  of  the  candidates  for  the  office, 
which  was  conferred  by  the  Sultan  on  the  highest  bid- 
der. But  the  deposed  Timoth}-,  having  contrived  to 
placate  the  Sultan  by  a  more  pi^incely  donation  than  Cyril 
was  able  to  offer,  was  restored.  The  latter,  however, 
had  only  a  few  years  to  wait  for  the  coveted  prize. 
For  on  the  death  of  Timothy,  Cyril  was  appointed  his 
successor,  in  1621.  Possessed  of  the  highest  ecclesias- 
tical dignity  which  the  schismatical  Greek  Church 
could  bestow,  or  the  Sublime  Porte  confirm,  Cyril  de- 
termined to  use  all  the  influence  which  his  position  gave 
him,  in  order  to  revolutionize  the  creed  of  his  wretched 
countrymen.  In  this  he  was  abl}'  sustained  by  the  am- 
bassadors of  England,  Holland,  and  Sweden  at  Constan- 
tinople. The  English  and  Swedish  monarchs,  in  fact, 
the  whole  of  Protestant  Europe,  watched  his  movements 
with  an  interest  which  nothing  but  a  common  cause  of 
the  greatest  importance  could  have  evoked;  and  money 
was  not  wanting,  when  that  commodity  was  in  demand, 
to  promote  the  success  of  the  scheme  to  which  Cyril 
had  devoted  his  life.  Cyril  was  soon  enabled  by  his 
friends  to  establish  a  printing  press  in  Constantinople, 
an  advantage  which  rendered  it  easy  for  him  to  inoculate 
with  his  views  all  whom  he  could  not  reach  with  his 
voice.  The  prospect  was  almost  as  favorable  as  he  or 
his  patrons  in  England  and  Germany  could  desire.  But 
there  were  circumstances  which  boded  no  good  to  him- 
self or  his  cause.  The  Jesuits,  who  were  present  in 
Constantinople,  charged  with  the  interests  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  and  protected  by  the  French  ambassador, 
opposed  with  all  their  influence  the  policy  of  Cyril ;  and 
a  powerful  party  of  Greek  schismatics,  when  they  un- 
derstood the  ultimate  purpose  of  that  policy,  prepared 
to  resist  to  the  utmost  the  consummation  of  the  aposta- 


2o8  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

sy,  in  which  he  proposed  to  involve  his  unhappy  coun- 
try. 

In  1628,  however,  the  friends  of  Cyril  contrived  to 
have  the  Jesuits  expelled  from  Constantinople,  and  he, 
now  relieved  of  their  annoyance,  felt  comparatively  free 
to  pursue  his  own  course.  Christendom  was  therefore 
astounded,  in  1629,  by  the  appearance  of  his  "  Confession 
of  Faith,"  a  work  dedicated  to  Cornelius  Von  Hagen, 
Dutch  ambassador  to  the  Porte.  A  Latin  translation  of 
it  was  published  the  same  year  at  Geneva,  with  the 
name  of  "  Cyril,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,"  as  its 
author.  There  was  no  Christian  creed  with  which  it 
was  identical,  although  it  closely  resembled  Calvinism. 
Although  no  longer  annoyed  by  the  unwelcome  presence 
of  the  Jesuits,  Cyril,  having  now  shown  his  hand,  found 
that  his  troubles  were  co'nstantly  increasing.  He  had  by 
his  bold  denial  of  doctrines,  which  they  held  sacred, 
excited  against  himself  the  indignation  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished persons  belonging  to  his  own  communion. 
And  he  had  every  reason  to  believe,  that  the  Turkish 
government,  though  treating  with  sovereign  contempt 
his  effort  at  engrafting  Protestant  tenets  on  the  creed 
of  the  Greek  Chureh,  was  not  indisposed  to  suspect 
him  of  treasonable  designs  against  the  State.  Deposed 
one  day,  perhaps  to  be  restored  the  next  by  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Protestant  ambassadors  at  Constantinople, 
or  by  a  judicious  use  of  money,  the  magic  power  of 
which  on  a  Turkish  ofificial  no  one  understood  better 
than  Cyril,  that  miserable  man  experienced  hardly  a 
day's  peace  after  he  had  thrown  off  the  mask. 

At  length,  in  1633,  the  opposition  among  the  members 
of  his  own  Church  became  so  violent,  that  he  was  de- 
posed. And  after  an  unsuccessful  effort  of  Cyril  Con- 
tari,  Bishop  of  Berea,  to  purchase  the  succession,  it 
was  disposed  of  to  Anastasius,  Bishop  of  Thessalonica, 
ior  sixty  thousand  dollars.     Cyril  Lucar,  however,  was 


A  inoiig  the  Schismatics.  209 

soon  restored  by  the  Sultan  on  the  payment  of  a  still 
larger  price,  seventy  thousand  dollars.  But  the  follow- 
ing year  he  was  again  compelled  to  vacate  the  patriarch- 
ate in  favor  of  Cyril  Contari,  who  had  been  defeated  by 
Anastasius.  As  soon  as  Contari  was  in  possession  of 
the  See,  he  convened  a  synod  in  which  he  anathematized 
Lucar  as  a  Lutheran,  and  openly  declared  his  own  sub- 
mission to  the  See  of  Rome,  and  his  intention  of  send- 
ing Lucar  a  prisoner  to  the  Pope.  But  Contari  himself 
was  soon  deposed  through  the  influence  of  those  who 
still  adhered  to  the  fortunes  of  Lucar,  who  was  restored 
in  1636.  But  the  end  of  the  latter,  after  having  been 
five  times  deposed,  with  often  the  penalty  of  exile 
added,  and  five  times  restored,  was  fast  approaching. 
Accused  of  inciting  the  Cossacks  to  plunder  the  town 
of  Azoff,  he  was  found  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  his 
enemies  in  June  1638  obtained  from  the  Sultan  a  war- 
rant for  his  execution.  Arrested  on  the  twenty-sixth 
of  that  month  by  the  Janissaries,  he  was  placed  by  them 
on  board  a  boat,  under  the  pretence  of  being  carried 
into  exile.  Perceiving,  when  out  of  sight  of  land,  that 
death,  not  exile,  awaited  him,  he  knelt  and  prayed 
earnestly.  Then  the  executioners,  having  put  the  bow- 
string around  his  neck,  completed  their  horrible  task, 
and  threw  his  body  into  the  sea.  It  was  picked  up  by 
some  fishermen  and  restored  to  his  friends,  by  whom  it 
was  decently  buried.  But  the  malice  of  his  enemies 
did  not  cease  with  his  life.  They  complained  to  the 
governor  of  the  city,  by  whose  order  the  corpse  was 
disinterred  and  again  thrown  into  the  sea  ;  washed  on 
shore  by  the  billows,  it  was  again  buried  on  one  of  the 
islands  in  the  bay  of  Nicomedia.  Such  is  a  brief  sum- 
mary of  what  we  have  been  told  by  two  Protestant 
writers,'  regarding  the  checkered  career  and  tragic  end 

1  Neale,  Anglican  minister,  Hist,  of  the  Holy  Eastern    Church;   Kimmcl, 
Licentiate  of  Jena,  Mumimenta  Fidei  Eccl.  Orientalis. 


2IO  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men,  whom  the  Greek 
schism  lias  produced. 

Metrophanes  Critopulus,  after  leaving  England,  spent 
some  time  among  the  Lutherans  in  Germany,  and  while 
there,  at  their  request,  he  too  drew  up  a  confession  of 
faith,  which,  like  Cyril's,  professes  to  be  an  exposition  of 
the  doctrines  held  by  the  Eastern  Church.    But  as  they 
contradict  each  other,  one  of  them  must  be  false.     In- 
deed, both  were  proved   to  be  so  when    that    Eastern 
Church  subsequently,  through  her  sj^nods,  put  forth  her 
own    Confession  of   Faith.      The  confession  of  INIetro- 
phanes  is  quite  a  treatise,  being  about  ten  times  larger 
than   that   of    Cyril.      It   leans   towards   Lutheranism, 
while  Cyril's  to  a  certain  extent  is  Calvinistic,  but  nei- 
ther represents  the  creed  of  any  sect  that  ever  existed 
before  or  since.      Hi\d  Cyril  and  his  disciple  succeeded 
in    introducing    their    doctrines    among    the    Greeks, 
Greece  undoubtedly  would  soon  have  been  invaded  by 
a  swarm  of   sects  difTering  from,  but  as  numerous   as 
those,  which  overran  the  countries  plagued  by  Protes- 
tantism.    Metrophanes,  after  parting  with  his  Lutheran 
friends,  returned  to  Greece,  where  he  succeeded  C}' ril 
in  the  patriarchal  See  of  Alexandria  ;  of  his  subsequent 
career  nothing  almost  is  known  beyond  the  remarkable 
fact,  that,  when  in    1638  Cyril  Contari,  the    patriarch, 
convened  a  synod  at  Constantinople  to  anathematize  the 
errors  of  Cyril,  the  ungrateful  Metrophanes  joined  with 
the  said  Contari  and  Theophanes,  patriarch  of  Jerusa- 
lem, twenty-four  archbishops,  and  many  other  dignitar- 
ies, in    the    condemnation  of    his  unfortunate    patron.  ' 
He  had  probably  been  convinced    by  the  downfall  of 
that  patron,  that  there  was  no  room  in  Greece  for  here- 
sies imported  from  Geneva  or  Wittenberg. 

3  Schaft,  Creeds  of  Christendom,  vol.  i.  p.  53  ;  Kimmel.  Mon..  Pref.  to  Part 
ii.  p.  viii ;  Neale,  Hist,  of  the  Holy  Eastern  Churchy  vol.  ii..  pp.  459-461  ; 
Alzog,  Manual  of  Universal  Hist.^  iii.  467 


A  vwng  the  Schisjiiaiics.  2 1 1 

Cyril,  among  his  other  errors,  had  said,  while  treating 
of  the  Scriptures :  "  But  the  books  which  we  call  Apo- 
crypha are  so  named,  because  they  have  not  received 
from  the  Holy  Spirit  the  same  authority  as  those 
which  are  correctly  and  undoubtedly  canonical,  of 
which  number  are  the  Pentateuch  of  Moses,  and  the 
Hagiographa,  and  the  Prophets  which  the  Synod  of 
Laodicea  directed  to  be  read  from  the  twenty-two 
books  of  the  Old  Testament.  "  Then  follows  a  correct 
summary  of  the  New  Testament  books. 

Metrophanes,  after  enumerating  the  Old  Testament 
books  which  are  contained  in  the  Hebrew^  canon,  and 
indicating  all  belonging  to  the  New  Testament,  remarks  : 
"  But  the  other  books  which  some  wish  to  catalogue 
with  the  Holy  Scripture,  as  Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  Wisdom  of  Jesus  Son  of  Sirach,  Baruch,  and 
the  books  of  Machabees,  we  indeed  do  not  think  are  to 
be  neglected.  For  they  contain  many  moral  principles, 
worthy  of  a  great  deal  of  praise.  But  the  Church  of 
Christ  never  received  them  as  canonical,  as  many,  es- 
pecially St.  Gregory  the  Theologian,  and  St.  Am- 
philochius,  and  last  of  all  St.  John  Damascene,  testify. 
Wherefore  we  do  not  attempt  to  establish  our  doctrines 
out  of  those,  but  out  of  the  thirty-three  canonical  books, 
which  we  call  Inspired  and  Holy  Scripture.  "  He  had 
just  said  that  the  canonical  books  amounted  to  thirty- 
three,  but  said  so  solely  to  fabricate  a  mystical  relation 
between  them  and  the  thirt3'-three  years  of  the  mortal 
life  spent  by  the  Redeemer  on  earth — ridiculous  trifling 
with  a  solemn  subject !  Why  not  say  that  the  canonical 
books  amount  to  only  three,  because  He  spent  three 
days  in  the  grave  ;  or  better  still,  to  forty,  because  He 
fasted  forty  days  or  remained  on  earth  forty  days  after 
His  ascension?  Metrophanes  seems  to  have  been  a 
simple  layman,  when  he  committed  his  errors  to  paper, 
and  never  afterwards  on    his  return   to  Greece,  when 


212  Tlic  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament 

promoted  to  ecclesiastical  honor,  to  have  proposed 
them  to  the  acceptance  of  any  one.  He  therefore  prob- 
ably was  allowed  to  die  in  peace,  while  his  patron 
Cyril,  because  he  had  brought  disgrace  on  the  patriar- 
chal dignity  as  a  teacher  of  heresy,  was  persecuted  in 
life  and  anathematized  in  death  b}'  the  outraged  mem- 
bers of  his  own  flock. 

Let  us  now  see  what  was  done  by  the  Greeks,  in 
reference  to  the  teaching  of  Cyril  Lucar,  regarding  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  after  the  Synod  of  Con- 
stantinople, held  in  1638,  under  his  successor,  Cyril 
Contari  had,  as  we  have  seen,  condemned  Lucar's  views 
within  three  months  after  the  awful  death  of  the  latter. 
In  1642  Parthenius,  who  had  succeeded  Cyril  Contari, 
convened  a  council  in  Constantinople.  Its  acts  are 
sometimes  confounded  with  those  of  the  Synod  held 
soon  after  at  Jassy,  in  Moldavia,  because  the  latter 
adopted  as  its  own  the  decrees  contained  in  a  synodal 
letter  addressed  to  it  by  the  council  under  Parthenius. 
These  decrees,  as  well  as  other  papers  connected  with 
the  Synod  of  Jassy,  the  whole  being  preceded  by  the 
decrees  of  the  Council  of  Constantinople,  are  incorpo- 
rated in  the  acts  of  the  Council  of  Jerusalem,  held  on 
March  16,  1672,  under  Dositheus,  the  schismatical  Patri- 
arch of  that  city.  In  the  xviii.  or  last  decree  belonging 
to  the  synodal  letter  just  mentioned,  it  is  said  that 
Cyril  Lucar  had  embodied  in  his  confession  certain 
questions  no  better  than  the  confession  itself,  "  Inas- 
much as  he  also,  as  above,  not  only  rejects  the  interpre- 
tations given  b}^  our  Fathers  to  the  Scripture,  but  ex- 
punges some  of  its  books,  which  holy  and  ceuiiienical 
eoitncils  have  received  as  canonical^  '  The  books  referred 
to  are,  of  course,  those  which  Cyril  had  called  apocry- 
phal. The  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Constantinople 
were  subscribed  by  three  Patriarchs,  twenty-one  bishops,, 

'  Kimmel,  Moniitnenta  Fidel,  Part  i.  p.  415-416. 


A  inojig  the  Schismatics.  2 1 3 

and  twenty-three  others  ;  those  of  the  Council  of  Jassy 
by  Partheniiis,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  Peter  Mog- 
ilas, '  metropoHtan  of  Kiew,  eight  Bishops,  thirty-five 
synodal  officials,  some  of  whom  were  bishops,  and  other 
persons  of  great  dignity. 

The  controversy  which  originated  with  Cyril  Lucar 
constitutes  by  itself  quite  a  literature  ;  and  although 
many  documents  connected  with  it  have  already  been 
published,  many  still  remain  unedited  and  will  probabl}' 
ever  remain  so.  One  such  seems  to  have  been  first 
cited  by  an  English  writer  in  Dixon's  Introduction  to  the 
Sacred  Scripture.  -  It  is  one  of  a  collection  preserved 
in  Paris,  containing  the  proceedings  of  the  Greek  Church 
in  reference  to  the  innovations  attempted  by  C3'ril,  and 
formerly  belonging  to  the  library  of  St.  Germain  de 
Pres.  It  was  signed  July  18,  1671,  at  Pera,  a  suburb  of 
Constantinople,  by  seven  archbishops  of  the  Greek 
Church,  Bartholomew  of  Heraclea,  Jerome  of  Chalcedon, 
Methodius  of  Pisidia,  Metrophanesof  Cyzicum,  Anthon}' 
of  Athens,  Joachim  of  Rhodes,  Neophite  of  Nicomedia. 
In  it  the  condemnation  of  Cyril  by  the  Council  of 
Constantinople  under  Parthenius  is  approved,  and  in 
the  fourteenth  article  it  is  declared,  "  that  the  books  of 
Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  Baruch,  and 
the  Machabees  make  part  of  the  Holv  ^Scripture,  and  are 
not  to  be  rejected  as  profane." 

Another  Synod,  bearing  the  date  of  January  1672,  ^ 
was  held  in  Constantinople  under  Dionvsius.  then  patri- 
arch of  that  city.  Its  purpose  seems  to  have  been  to 
satisfy  certain  enquiries  made  in  consequence  of  doubts 
excited  by  the  teaching  of  Cvril's  partisans,  although 
throughout  the  instructions  given  to  dissipate  those 
doubts  the  name  of  Cyril  is  not  once  mentioned.  About 
to  conclude  what  the}'  had  to  say  to  their  flocks,  the 
bishops  remark,  "  with   regard  to  the  scriptural  books, 

1   Or   Mogila.      ^  Vol.  i.  p.  30.  ■^  Kimmel  Monnmeuta,  Part  ii.  j).  214. 


214  T^^^'^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

we  find  that  they  have  been  enumerated  in  various  ways 
by  the  Apostolic  canons,  and  the  holy  Synods  in  Laodi- 
cea  and  Carthage,  the  constitutions  of  Clement  being 
excluded,  since  the  second  canon  of  the  Sixth  Synod 
removes  them,  because  they  had  been  corrupted  by  the 
heretics,  as  is  known  to  every  one  who  cares  to  inquire 
and  learn  what  books  are  admitted.  Such  books,  there- 
fore, of  the  Old  Testament  as  are  not  comprised  in  the 
enumeration  of  writers  on  theological  subjects  are  not 
for  that  reason  rejected  as  profane  and  unhallowed, 
but  are  treated  as  precious  and  excellent,  and  not  at  all 
to  be  despised."  Then  follow  the  subscriptions  of 
Dionysius  and  several  other  bishops.  ' 

We  must  now  call  attention  to  the  testimony  rendered 
by  another  council  of  Greek  bishops  already  referred  to, 
that  of  Jerusalem,  held  in  1672,  under  Dositheus,  then 
patriarch  of  that  city.  Following  the  example  set  b}' 
the  Council  of  Jassy,  it  anathematized,  not  C3'ril  Lucar,. 
but  all  the  errors  contained  in  the  confession  published 
as  his,  and  all  who  favored  or  professed  those  errors. 
For,  in  fact,  in  both  councils  the  confession  was  treated 
as  a  Calvinistic  forger)^.  And  the  Council  of  Jerusalem 
actually  cited  several  passages  from  sermons  and  homi- 
lies of  Cyril,  to  prove  that,  in  the  writings  known  to  be 
his, his  teaching  was  directl}^  opposed  to  that  found  in 
the  confession,  the  authorship  of  which,  while  it  was 
never  claimed,  was,  however,  never  disavowed  by  him. 
In  this  way  the  Council  shows,  for  instance,  that  Cyril 
had  treated  Tobias,  Wisdom,  and  the  history  of  Susanna 
as  Sacred  Scripture,  and  intimated  that  it  would  be  easy 
to  multiply  such  evidence  b}'  extracts  from  the  homilies 
of  Cyril  then  at  hand.  But  taking  up  the  third  question 
in  the  confession  attributed  to  Cyril,  "What  books  do 
you  call  Sacred  Scripture?"  the  Council  answers  it  by 
distinctly   declaring,   that  "  FoHowing  the  rule  of  the 

'  Kimmel,  Monumoila,  Part  ii.,  225. 


A  inong  the  Schismatics.  2 1 5 

Catholic  Church  we  call  all  those  books  Sarced  Script- 
ure, which  Cyril,  copying  the  Synod  of  Laodicea, 
enumerates,  and  in  addition  to  them  those  which  he 
foolishly  and  ignorantly,  or  rather  maliciously,  pro- 
nounced apocryphal,  to  wit  the  wisdom  of  Solomon, 
Judith,  Tobias,  the  History  of  the  Dragon,  the  History 
of  Susanna,  the  Machabees,  the  Wisdom  of  Sirach.  For 
we  judge  these  genuine  parts  of  the  Scripture  along 
with  the  other  genuine  books  of  the  divine  Scripture, 
because  ancient  custom  and  most  of  all  the  Catholic 
Church  has  handed  it  down  that  the  sacred  Gospels  are 
genuine,  and  that  the  other  books  of  the  Scripture  are 
genuine,  and  that  these  beyond  all  doubt  are  parts  of 
the  Holy  Scripture  ;  and  the  denial  of  these  latter  (books) 
is  the  rejection  of  the  former.  But  if  it  seems  that  all 
have  not  been  always  catalogued  by  all,  these,  neverthe- 
less, are  numbered  and  catalogued  with  all  the  Scripture 
by  synods,  and  by  the  most  ancient  and  approved 
theologians  of  the  Catholic  Church.  All  which  books 
we  both  judge  to  be  canonical,  and  confess  to  be  sacred 
Scripture."  The  decrees  of  this  Council  are  signed  by 
Dositheus,  patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  and  by  sixty-eight 
Eastern  bishops  and  ecclesiastics,  including  some  who 
represented  the  Russian  Church.  ' 

Further  evidence  is  hardly  necessary  to  prove  what 
no  one  familiar  with  the  agitation  which  the  career  of 
Cyril  Lucar  occasioned,  will  deny — that  then  and  subse- 
quently the  Greek  hierarchy  was  unanimous  in  maintain- 
ing the  canonicity  of  the  Old  Testament  deutero  books  ; 
yet  the  reader  will,  it  is  hoped,  hear  patiently  two  other 
witnesses,  whom  Ubaldi,  while  discussing  this  subject, 
has  introduced.'  One  is  Macharius,  the  schismatical  pa- 
triarch of  Antioch,  who,  according  to  Renaudot,'  in  1671 

'  Kimmel,  Monumenla  Fidei,  Part  i.  pp.  487,  488. 

'  Introd.  in  S.  Script.,  i.,  341. 

^  La  perpetititi  del  a  foi,  Tom.  iii.,  531  {Ed  Paris,  1704.) 


2i6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

denounced  the  errors  of  the  Calvinists,  and  severely  con- 
demned the  Protestants  generally  for  having  expunged 
from  the  canon  the  Apocalypse,  the  Epistle  of  James, 
and  the  books  of  Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus, 
and  Machabees.  "  But  we,"  he  sa)'s,  "  receive  and  read 
all  these  in  the  pure,  holy,  and  orthodox  Church."  The 
other  witness  is  Neophyte,  schismatical  patriarch  of  x\n- 
tioch,  who,  on  May  3,  1673,  at  the  request  of  De  Nointel 
French  ambassador  to  the  Sublime  Porte,  subscribed,  in 
the  name  of  all  the  bishops  and  priests  belonging  to  his 
patriarchate,  a  profession  of  faith  against  the  innovations 
of  Protestants.  In  that  profession  of  faith  it  is  declared, 
that  "  we  receive  all  the  divine  books  which  the  Holy 
Fathers  and  councils  have  received.  Of  this  number  are 
Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  Ecclesiasticus,  Ba- 
ruch,  and  Machabees  ;  and  we  believe  the  words  of  these 
books  to  be  the  word  of  God."  ' 

Since  then  the  belief  of  the  Greek  schismatics  regard- 
ing the  canon  of  Scripture  has  remained  unchanged. 
Thus  the  impious  project  which  Cyril  was  the  first 
among  his  countrvmen  to  conceive,  while  it  precipitated 
his  own  ruin,  led  to  results  which  his  Protestant  abettors 
had  good  reason  to  deplore.  For  the  unanimous  pro- 
test which  that  project  evoked  throughout  the  East> 
proved  to  the  world  that  the  principles  of  the  Protes- 
tant creed  were  as  thoroughly  detested  among  the 
Greeks  as  among  the  Latins,  and  that  the  Tridentine 
canon  with  its  deutero  books  was  not  more  a  matter  of 
faith  in  Rome  than  in  Constantino|)lc,  Jerusalem,  Anti- 
och,  and  wherever  else  communities  were  found  pro- 
fessing the  creed  which  Cyril  Lucar  attempted  to  corrupt. 

'  La  Perpet.  de  la  foi,  Tom.  iii.  p.  547, 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


Conversion  of    the   Slavonians.— Origin  of  the 

SCHISMATICAL  RuSSO-GREEK  ChURCH. 

It  is  somewhat  doubtful  whether  the  first  to  preach 
the  Gospel  among  the  Russians  were  missionaries  from 
Rome  or  Constantinople.  Heard,'  a  recent  Protestant 
writer,  who  as  consul-general  of  the  United  States  for 
Russia  had  ample  opportunity  for  ascertaining  the  tra- 
ditional belief  of  the  Russian  people  on  the  subject, 
states  that  it  is  generally  held  by  them  that  "  St.  Antho- 
ny the  Great,  or  the  Roman,''  during  the  persecution  ex- 
cited by  the  Iconoclasts,  who  began  to  disturb  the  peace 
of  the  Church  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighth  century, 
was  borne  on  a  rock  from  "  the  Tiber  "  to  Novogorod,  a 
Russian  city  of  great  antiquity.  There  he  was  received 
by  St.  Nitika,  the  metropolitan  of  a  church  already  es- 
tablished in  the  place,  and  joined  with  him  in  prayers, 
each  being  miraculously  enabled  to  understand  the  lan- 
guage of  the  other.  The  ruler  of  the  city  gave  Anthony 
land  on  which  to  build  the  celebrated  monastery  named 
after  its  holy  founder.  And  "  the  boat  of  stone  still  excites 
the  devotion  of  the  worshippers,  and  the  palm  branches  in 
the  chapel  are  still  as  green  as  when  brought  from  Rome 
by  Anthony."  This  would  imply  that  the  germ  of 
Christianity  was  planted  in  Russia  by  the  combined  la- 
bors of  Latins  and  Greeks. 

If,  however,  an  attempt  was  then  made  to  introduce 
Christian  principles  to  that  part  of  Europe,  it  must  have 

1    The  Russian  Church  and  Russian  Dissent,  p.  13,  New  V<irk,  1887. 


21: 


21 8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

failed.  For  the  various  nations  there  settled  were  still 
generally  unconverted  until  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the 
ninth  century ,  when  SS.  Cyril  and  Methodius  under- 
took to  plant  the  cross  among  them.  These  two  broth- 
ers were  natives  of  Thessalonica.  Both  became  priests, 
the  latter  embracing  the  monastic  state  in  Constantino- 
ple, where  the  other  seems  to  have  resided  and  to  have 
been  favorably  known.  For  when  the  Chazari,  a  tribe 
settled  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube,  near  the  confines  of 
Germany,  sent  an  embassy  to  Constantinople,  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  missionaries  to  labor  among  them, 
Ignatius,  the  holy  patriarch,  was  requested  b}'  the  Em- 
peror Michael  III.  and  his  mother,  the  pious  Empress 
Theodora,  to  select  some  ecclesiastic  possessed  of  the 
necessary  qualifications  for  a  position  so  important.  The 
choice  of  the  patriarch,  who  was  always  in  ccmm union 
with  Rome,  and  often  appealed  to  that  See  when  his  own 
rights  were  afterwards  invaded  by  the  usurper  Photius, 
fell  in  848  on  Cyril.  A  church  having  been  organized 
among  the  Chazari  by  the  apostolic  labors  of  this  de- 
voted priest,  he  returned  to  Constantinople  and  pre- 
vailed on  his  brother  Methodius  to  take  part  in  the 
mission,  to  which  he  had  consecrated  his  own  life. 
Their  united  efforts  were  soon  rewarded  by  the  conver- 
sion of  other  northern  tribes.  Bogoris,  King  of  the 
Bulgarians,  with  all  his  people,  after  being  instructed  by 
Methodius,  embraced  the  Christian  religion.  After  tak- 
ing the  name  of  Michael  in  baptism,  he  sent  an  embassy 
to  Pope  Nicholas  I.  with  presents  and  letters,  requesting 
to  be  further  instructed  on  the  new  life  on  which  he 
had  entered.  In  answer  to  his  pious  request  the  Pope 
wrote,^  in  867,  congratulating  him  on  his  conversion,  and 
sent  him  at  the  same  time  two  Italian  bishops,  Paul 
of  Populania  and  Formosus  of  Porto,  to  confirm  those 
who  had  been  already  baptized,  and  complete  the  work 

'   See  the  Pope's  letter  in  Henrion's  Hist.  De  L'Eglise,  Tom.  iv. ,  p.  29,  etc 


Among  the  Schismatics.  219 

done  by  Methodius.  The  two  prelates  also  brought 
along  with  them  the  divine  Scriptures,  and  such  other 
books  as  were  required  by  the  wants  of  the  new  mission, 
Cyril  and  Methodius  afterwards  came"  to  Rome  to  ren- 
der an  account  of  their  ministry.  They  were  there 
honored  by  a  triumphal  reception.  Adrian  II.,  who  had 
succeeded  Nicholas,  having  approved  of  all  they  had 
done,  promoted  both  to  the  episcopate.  Cyril  having 
died  while  in  Rome,  Methodius  returned  to  the  scene  of 
his  former  labors.  By  the  zeal  of  these  two  devoted 
missionaries,  assisted,  of  course,  by  others  from  Rome 
and  Constantinople,  Christianity  was  established  among 
the  tribes  already  mentioned,  the  Moravians  and  others, 
whose  vernacular  was  the  Slavonic  language,  or  some 
of  its  dialects.  Methodius  is  also  said,  after  his  return 
from  Rome,  to  have  visited  Muscovy,  and  to  have  es- 
tablished a  see  in  Kiew.'  The  two  brothers  also  in- 
vented the  Slavonic  alphabet,  translated  the  Scriptures 
and  LiturofV  into  Slavonic,  and  introduced  the  celebra- 
tion  of  Mass  in  that  language.  It  also  appears,  that  the 
Slavonic  Old  Testament,  then  prepared  for  all  who  used 
that  language,  was  a  translation  of  the  Vetus  Itala,' 
which  is  known  to  have  contained  the  deutero  books. 
Others, '  however,  are  of  opinion  that  the  brothers  fol- 
lowed the  Septuagint,  when  they  provided  their  con- 
verts wath  a  Slavonic  Old  Testament.  But  in  that  case, 
too,  the  Slavonic  Bible,  now  no  longer  extant,  must 
have  comprised  the  deutero  books,  for  the  Septuagint 
had  them. 

But  among  the  Russians,  a  branch  of  the  great  Sla- 
vonic family,  many  members  of  which  had  been  convert- 
ed by  Cyril  and  Methodius,  Christianity  appears  to  have 
made  little  progress  before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century. 
At  last  Vladimir,  their  ruler,  having  been  baptized,  was 

1  Alban  Butler's  Li7ies  of  Saints,  Dec.  22,  and  Roman  Breviary,  July  5. 
"  Kitto's  Cyclop.,   Versions.  ^  Danko,  De  S.  Script.,  i.,  239. 


220  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

determined  that  his  subjects  should  also  receive  this 
sacred  rite,  and  with  the  assistance  of  ecclesiastics  from 
Constantinople  he  succeeded  in  his  pious  purpose.  The 
conversion  of  Russia  having  therefore  been  accompHshed 
between  the  extinction  of  the  schism  produced  by 
Photius,  finally  deposed  in  886,  and  its  renewal  by  Michael 
Cerularius,  in  1053,  an  interval  during  which  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Pope  was  recognized  by  the  Greeks,  it  follows 
that  the  Russian  Church  at  its  creation  was  in  commun- 
ion with  Rome,  and  remained  so  all  through  and  long 
after  the  schismatical  proceedings  of  Cerularius  at  Con- 
stantinople. For  Isiaslif,  grandson  of  Vladimir,  sent  his 
own  son  to  Rome  "  to  do  homage  to  the  Pontiff  for  his 
kingdom,  and  to  put  his  states  under  the  protection  of 
thePrince  of  the  Apostles."  The  reply  of  St.  Gregory 
VII.  is  dated  April  17,  1075,  '  that  is,  twenty-two  years 
after  Cerularius  had  renewed  the  schism,  and  sixteen 
after  he  had  closed  his  miserable  career,  disgraced  and 
deofraded.  Even  Voltaire  notices  in  his  Annals,  that 
Demetrius,  driven  from  the  throne  of  Russia  in  1275, 
"  appealed  to  the  Pope  as  the  judge  of  all  Christians.'"' 
Heard,  quoted  above,  acknowledges,  that,  "  when  Chris- 
tianity was  introduced  in  Russia,  the  schism  dividing  the 
East  and  the  West,  although  threatening,  was  not  de- 
clared, and  the  Russian  establishment  was  a  branch  of 
the  Church  Universal  still  in  theory,  one  and  indi- 
visible." But  he  adds  :  "  The  final  separation,  consum- 
mated in  1054,  aroused  but  little,  if  any,  attention  in 
Russia."  '  Partly  true,  partly  false.  It  is  indeed  true 
that  the  schismatical  course  pursued  by  Cerularius  was 
greeted  with  little,  rather  no  sympathy  in  Russia,  which, 
by  the  facts  just  referred  to,  and  many  others  that  might 
be  cited,  '    is  proved  to  have  remained  loyal  to  Rome 

'  Robrbacher  Hist,  de  L Egl.,  Tom.  xiv.  p.  194. 

-  Dublin  Kfviev),  Vol.  xxiii.,  p.  424,  note. 

-  TJw  Russian  Church  and  Russian  dissent,  ]x  24. 
^  KohvliaclH-r,  fhst.  de  L F.gl.,  Toin..,  p.  130. 


Among  tJic  Schismatics.  221 

from  the  time  of  its  conversion  mitil  long  after  the  death 
of  that  ambitious  prelate.  But  it  is  not  true,  that  the 
final  separation  between  the  East  and  the  West  was  con- 
summated in  1054,  or  at  any  time  before  1439,  when 
Latins,  Greeks,  and  Russians  met  together  in  the  Coun- 
cil of  Florence,  under  the  presidency  of  Eugenius  IV., 
then  Sovereign  Pontiff;  and  all,  with  the  single  exception 
of  Mark  of  Ephesus,  acknowledged  the  primacy  of  the 
Pope.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  dogma,  to  the  profession 
of  which  all  solemnly  pledged  themselves  by  their  sig- 
natures, was  not  repudiated  finall}'  by  the  East  before 
the  year  1444.  The  canon  of  Scriptures  was  not  dis- 
cussed at  Florence,  the  question  being  one  about  which 
there  was  no  controversy.  But  before  the  close  of  the 
Council  circumstances  arose  which  called  for  a  decree' 
on  the  subject,  and  the  same  books  subsequently  sanc- 
tioned as  part  of  the  Sacred  Scripture  by  the  Council  of 
Trent  were  then  declared  canonical. 

Within  two  years  after  the  chjse  of  the  Council  of 
Florence,  the  perfidious  Greeks  had  violated  the  com 
pact  to  which  they  had  then  solemnly  pledged  them- 
selves. That  was  the  last  drop,  which  caused  the  cup 
of  their  iniquity  to  overflow  ;  for,  seven  years  more  had 
hardly  passed,  when  the  proud  prelates  of  those  ob- 
tinate  schismatics,  who  had  renounced  all  allegiance  to 
the  Vicar  of  Christ,  were  ground  to  the  dust  under  the 
crushing  tyranny  of  the  despot  who  represented  the  false 
prophet.  What  a  sad  picture  is  that  which  the  reader 
contemplates  as  he  examines  the  history  of  those  men, 
who,  ever  since  the  Sultan  superseded  the  Pope  among 
the  downtrodden  Greeks,  pretended  to  fill  the  chair  of 
Chrysostom.     "Their  procession  (says  Mr.  Heard)  is  a 

'  It  was  passed  in  1441,  after  the  Council  had  been  transferred  to  Rome,  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  Greeks  had  returned  home.  But  it  belongs  to  the  acts 
of  the  Council,  which  was  still  in  session  when  it  was  adopted  as  part  of  the  in- 
structions for  the  Jacobites.  Besides,  at  the  time  there  was  no  conflict  of  opin- 
ion between  the  East  and  the  West  regarding  the  canon  of  Scripture. 


222  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

melancholy  one  :  Joasaph  Cocas,  persecuted  by  his 
clergy,  attempted,  in  despair,  to  drown  himself  in  a 
well ;  rescued  and  reseated  on  the  throne,  he  was  driven 
into  exile  by  the  Sultan  ;  Mark  Xylocaraboeus  was 
exiled  ;  Simeon  paid  a  thousand  gold  florins  for  his 
seat,  and  was  thrown  into  a  monaster}-  ;  Dionysius 
had  the  same  fate ;  Raphael,  to  secure  his  nomination, 
doubled  the  tribute  hitherto  exacted;  unable  to  pay 
the  sum  promised,  he  was  thrust  forth,  loaded  with 
chains,  to  beg  by  the  roadside,  and  died  in  misery; 
Nyphon  had  his  nose  cut  off,  and  was  forced  into  exile  ; 
Joachim  raised  the  tribute  to  three  thousand  ducats, 
was  exiled,  recalled,  and  again  exiled  ;  Pacome  was 
poisoned ;  Jeremiah  I.  started  on  a  pastoral  tour,  his 
vicar  deserted  him  on  the  way,  hurried  back,  bribed  the 
vizier,  and  usurped  the  See  ;  he  was  driven  away  by  a 
popular  outbreak,  and  Jeremiah's  friends  purchased 
for  him  permission  to  resume  his  seat  ;  Joasaph  II.  again 
raised  the  tribute,  was  deposed  and  excommunicated  bv 
his  clergy  for  simony  ;  Gregory  was  cast  into  the  sea ; 
Cyril  Lucar  was  exiled  and  strangled ;  Metrophanes, 
accused  of  simony,  was  induced  to  resign  by  the  offer 
of  two  dioceses  ;  he  sold  the  one  and  administered  the 
other;  Jeremiah  II.,  bishop  of  Larissa,  was  elected  and 
confirmed  in  1572;  his  funds  were  exhausted  by  the 
tribute,  then  fixed  at  ten  thousand  florins,  and  he 
piteously  complained  in  his  correspondence  that  he 
dared  not  undertake  a  pastoral  tour  to  replenish  his 
treasury  from  the  alms  of  the  faithful,  for  fear  that 
in  his  absence  some  ambitious  brother  might  seize 
upon  the  throne.  The  danger  was  real.  Metrophanes 
reappeared  and  reasserted  his  claims  to  the  patriarchate  ; 
as  his  purse  was  the  longer,  he  was  reinstated  on  ap- 
peal to  the  Sultan.  At  his  death  Jeremiah  again 
enjoyed  a  brief  spell  of  power,  but,  accused  of  conspira- 
cy  against  the  government,   he   was  imprisoned,   then 


A  mong  the  Schisinatics.  223 

exiled  to  Rhodes.  Theoptus,  his  accuser,  seized  the 
vacant  seat,  disputed  also  by  Pacome,  a  monk  of  Lesbos, 
and,  by  the  opportune  payment  of  a  double  tribute, 
secured  the  imperial  comfirmation  ;  imprudently  he  ven- 
tured on  a  pastoral  v'isit  to  Wallachia,  and  in  his  absence 
Jeremiah's  friends  purchased  Jiis  pardon  and  reseated 
him  on  the  throne."'  We  have  met  with  Jeremiah  al- 
ready, and  will  soon  meet  with  him  again. 

In  Russia,  the  act  of  union,  which  had  been  so 
solemnly  ratified  by  all  parties  at  Florence,  was  hardlv 
commenced,  when  it  was  scornfully  rejected  by  the 
civil  ruler  under  the  following  circumstances.  The 
Church  there,  in  141 5,  consisted  of  the  two  metropolitan 
sees,  Kiew  and  Moscow,  and  the  suffragan  episcopal 
dioceses  attached  to  each.  Soon  after,  the  two  sees 
were  united,  being  governed  by  the  Metropolitan  Isi- 
dore sent  from  Constantinople  by  the  patriarch  Joseph. 
B}^  the  permission  of  prince  Wassali  III.,  Isidore,  with 
other  Russian  prelates,  was  present  at  the  Council  of 
Florence.  And  the  act  of  union  having  been  there 
adopted  in  1439,  he  returned  to  Russia  the  same  year  as 
delegate  apostolic,  sending  before  him  a  pastoral  an- 
nouncing that  the  union  had  been  consummated.  In 
Kiew  and  its  dependencies,  he  met  with  a  joyful  and  cor- 
dial reception.  But  on  reaching  Moscow  in  the  follow- 
ing spring,  he  was  greeted  with  different  feelings.  De- 
termined, however,  to  perform  what  he  considered  his 
duty,  he  entered  processionally  the  Church  of  (3ur 
Lady  in  the  Kremlin,  and  after  Mass  had  a  deacon  read 
the  decree  of  union  from  the  pulpit.  It  was  listened 
to  by  the  people  in  silence.  An  autograph  letter 
from  the  Pope  was  coldly  received  from  the  hands  of 
Isidore  by  the  prince,  who,  after  indignantly  repudiat- 
ing the  union,  had  Isidore  arrested  and  thrown  into 
prison,  whence  he  escaped  after  two  years'  confinement 

'    The  Russian  Church  unci  Russian  Dissent,   p.  59- 


224  TJie  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

and  found  a  safe  refuge  in  Rome,  where  he  died  1463. 
Sad  as  is  the  picture  which  we  have  contemplated  of 
the  miserable  condition  to  which  the  schismatical  pa- 
triarchs of  Constantinople  were  reduced  under  the 
pitiless  rule  of  the  Sultan,  it  is  hardly  more  so  than 
that  which  the  historian  sketches  when  describing-  the 
treatment  which  the  Russian  bishops  received  from  the 
Czar,  after  the  Russian  Church  had  been  declared  inde- 
pendent of  Rome.  Zosimos,  metropolitan,  was  deposed 
and  relegated  to  a  monastery  bv  Ivan  III.;  Barlaam^ 
also  metropolitan,  was  compelled  to  retire  by  Vassili 
IV.  Daniel,  who  succeeded,  sanctioned  Vassili's  divorce 
from  his  wife,  and  his  marriage  with  another  woman,  con- 
trary to  the  Greek  canons.  Daniel  and  his  successor 
were  afterwards  compelled,  the  one  to  abdicate,  and  the 
other  to  go  into  exile.  Leonidas,  archbishop  of  Novo- 
gorod,  was  sowed  up  in  a  bear-skin  and  worried  by 
dogs,  according  to  the  despotic  order  of  Ivan  IV., 
worthil}^  nicknamed  "  the  Terrible  ;  "  the  Archbishop's 
offence  was  his  refusal  to  unite  the  inhuman  monster  to 
a  fourth  wife.  He  had  three  more  after  her,  and  during 
his  reign,  besides  murdering  his  own  son,  butchered 
about  five  hundred  priests  and  religious,  and  massacred 
some  sixty  thousand  people.  As  supreme  head  of  a 
schismatical  church  he  was  the  right  man  in  the  right 
place.  Anastasius,  another  metropolitan,  terrified  at  the 
atrocities  of  Ivan,  probably  saved  his  life  by  retiring  to 
a  monastery.  Germanus,  appointed,  declined  the  peril- 
ous post ;  Philip  consented  to  fill  the  vacancy,  was  soon 
seized  at  the  altar,  disrobed,  dragged  to  prison,  and 
transferred  to  the  monastery  of  Ostroch,  where  he  was 
strangled  in  his  cell  by  order  of  the  Czar.  Job,  the  first 
patriarch,  was  dragged  from  the  altar  by  an  infuriated 
mob;  degraded,  insulted,  and  beaten,  he  was  hurried 
away  to  confinement  in  the  monastery  of  Staritza. 
Archbishop  Tver  was  slain  ;  Gennadius,  bishop  of  Pskof, 


Among  the  Schismatics.  223 

died  of  a  broken  heart ;  Gelaktion,  bishop  of  Sowzdal, 
perished  in  exile ;  Joseph,  bishop  of  Kolomna,  was 
drao-oed  in  chains  from  town  to  town.  Nikon,  the 
patriarch,  and  one  of  the  best  prelates  the  Russian 
schism  has  ever  produced,  for  his  efforts  to  remedy 
abuses  in  Church  and  state,  was  maltreated  by  a  mob, 
and  left  for  dead  on  the  streets.  Subsequently  he  was 
placed  on  trial  before  a  court,  in  which  the  Czar  presid- 
ed, and  which  was  composed  of  the  patriarchs  of  Alex- 
andria and  Antioch,  eight  metropolitans  of  the  Greek 
Church  outside  Russia,  with  all  the  great  dignitaries  of 
the  Russian  hierarchy.  Nikon,  after  being  condemned, 
was  degraded  and  sentenced  to  do  penance  the  rest  of 
his  life  in  a  far-distant  monastery.  Some  time  after,  he 
was  permitted  to  spend  his  last  days  in  the  monastery  of 
Voskresensk,  but  breathed  his  last  at  Yaroslav,  as  he  lay 
stretched  in  the  barge  which  bore  him  on  the  Volga  to 
his  destination.  The  picture  is  sufficiently  sickening, 
without  intensifying  its  horrors  by  prolonging  the  dark 
catalogue,  or  adding  to  it  the  Cathohc  martyrs  of  ever}^- 
rank  and  age  in  Poland  and  Russia,  whose  sufferings  bear- 
witness  to  the  savage  deeds  which  disgraced  the  history 
of  the  Czars  after  they  usurped  the  spiritual  powers 
which  belonged,  not  only  by  divine  right,  but  by  long- 
established  precedent,  to  the  Roman  Pontiff. 

But  to  return  to  Jeremiah  II.,  patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople. Ivan  "  the  Terrible,"  at  his  death  in  15 86,  left  his 
crown  to  his  feeble  son  Feodor  I.,  who,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  his  wife,  allowed  her  brother  Boris  Godounov 
to  control  the  affairs  of  Church  and  State.  This  unscru- 
pulous favorite  determined  that,  as  the  Russian  Church 
had  swung  loose  from  Rome,  it  should  be  independent 
of  Constantinople.  That  once  opulent  see,  through  the 
exactions  of  the  Sultan  and  the  ambition  of  competitors 
for  the  patriarchal  dignity,  w^is  so  impoverished  that 
Jeremiah,  no  longer  able  to  provide  for  the  expenses  of 


226  The  Caiioi  of  the  Old  Tcstaincnt 

divine  worship  without  appealing  to  his  friends  at  a 
distance,  was  compelled  to  solicit  in  person  alms  among 
the  people  of  Russia,  at  the  risk  of  finding  on  his  return 
his  throne  occupied  by  some  one  with  a  larger  bribe 
than  he  could  offer.  He  reached  Russia  soon  after  the 
accession  of  Feodor  I.,  and  the  astute  Godounov  formed 
his  plan  for  making  the  necessities  of  the  illustrious 
mendicant  subservient  to  the  success  of  the  measures 
necessary  for  remodelling  the  Russian  hierarch)\  Jere- 
miah was  asked  to  establish  his  residence  in  Russia.  To 
this  he  assented,  provided  the  patriarchal  see  should  be 
attached  to  Moscow.  But  given  to  understand  that 
that  honor  was  reserved  for  Vladimir,  and  suspecting,  no 
doubt  with  reason,  that  he  was  or  would  be  the  dupe  of 
the  wily  Godounov,  Jeremiah  concluded  that,  after  all, 
Russian  hospitality  might  be  less  tolerable  than  Turkish 
brutality,  and  decided  on  declining  the  proffered  patriar- 
chate. When,  however,  it  was  proposed  that  he  should 
create  a  new  and  independent  Russian  patriarch,  he 
agreed  ;  and  as  it  had  been  arranged  between  Godounov 
and  himself,  the  choice  fell  upon  Job,  then  primate  and  a 
creature  of  the  former.  Apprehensive  of  the  trouble  in 
store  for  him  at  Constantinople  for  his  part  in  tlie  trans- 
action, Jeremiah  was  anxious  to  leave,  but  much  against 
his  will  was  persuaded  to  take  part  in  and  officiate  at 
the  installation  of  the  new  patriarch,  thus  simoniacally 
surrendering  all  the  rights  of  his  patriarchate  over  the 
Russian  Church.  Loaded  with  alms  and  presents,  he 
was  at  last  allowed  to  depart  in  the  spring  of  1589. 
The  two  prelates  who  accompanied  him  disavowed  his 
acts,  and  the  other  Greek  patriarchs  were  slow  to  ap- 
prove them,  and  when  the}'  did  so  it  was  only  on  condi- 
tion that  the  Russian  patriarchate  should  be  fifth  in  the 
order  of  precedence,  instead  of  third  as  arranged  by 
Jeremiah,  and  that  its  incumbent  should  seek  investiture 
at  Constantinople.     It  is  needless  to  observe  that  neither 


A7;io//(^  tJic  Schismatics. 


22; 


■condition  was  insisted  on.  In  1721,  Peter  the  Great, 
after  murdering  his  own  son  and  butchering  the  metro- 
politans of  Kiew  and  Rostow,  with  scores  of  the  clergy, 
abolished  the  patriarchate,  substituting  for  it  wdiat  is 
called  the  Holy  Governing  Synod,  through  which  the  Czar 
exercises  supreme  control  over  the  Russian  Church. 

One  might  suppose,  that  under  the  circumstances  the 
entire  Russian  population  professes  the  same  faith  and 
belongs  to  the  same  Church.  But  it  is  far  otherwise. 
For  it  may  be  said,  without  exaggeration,  that  among 
the  subjects  of  the  Czar  there  are  millions  who  are  in 
no  w^ay  connected  with  the  Church  of  which  he  is  the 
supreme  head,  and  are  themselves  divided  into  countless 
sects,  whose  countless  creeds  are  opposed,  many  of  them, 
to  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Christian  religion, 
while  others  outrage  the  plainest  dictates  of  common 
sense,  or  treat  with  contempt  the  obvious  rules  of  com- 
mon decency.  To  this  babel  of  religion  and  ethics 
must  be  added  various  communities  still  deep  in  the 
mire  of  paganism,  and  likely  to  remain  long  so.  For 
nothing  can  be  done  towards  their  conversion  without 
the  permission  of  the  government,  which  appears  to 
think  that  they  are  as  easilj^  ruled  as  many  Christians 
inside  or  outside  the  national  Church.  And  as  absolute 
submission  to  its  despotic  will  is  the  only  matter  about 
which  that  government  is  concerned,  it  requires  no 
array  of  statistics  to  figure  out  the  result. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


The  Russo-Greek  Church  on  the  Canon.  Petition 
OF  Anglican  Non  Jurors  for  Recognition  by 
Greeks  and  RussiaxNs.  Recent  Conferences  be- 
tween Anglicans,  Old  Catholics,  Greeks,  and 
Russians  for  Intercommunion.  These  Confer- 
ences on  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

From  several  facts  referred  to  in  the  preceding  brief 
sketch  of  the  Russian  Church  it  is  evident,  that  the 
Bible  it  received  at  its  origin  embraced  the  deutero 
books.  For  this  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  its  union 
with  Constantinople  and  Rome,  where  these  books,  at 
the  time,  constituted  an  integral  part  of  the  divine 
volume.  Indeed,  the  first  Bibles  placed  in  the  hands  of 
Russian  Christians  were,  as  we  have  seen,  translated 
from  the  Septuagint  or  the  Ancient  Vulgate,  perhaps 
from  both  ;  either  of  which,  it  is  unnecessary^  to  say, 
contained  all  the  books  now  found  in  that  copy  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures  authenticated  by  the  Council  of 
Trent.  Any  doubt,  however,  on  this  subject  must  give 
way  to  the  following  considerations. 

Peter  Mogila,  metropolitan  of  Moscow,  was  present 
at  the  Council  of  Jassy  in  1642,  where  he,  with  Parthe- 
nius,  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  eight  bishops,  thirty- 
five  svnodal  officials,  including  many  bishops,  and  other 
dignitaries, '  condemned  Cyril  Lucar  for  having,  among 
other  errors,  "  expunged  some  books  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,   which  had  been  received  as    canonical    by 

'   Kimmel,  Alonumenta,  Part  I.  p.  417. 


Among  the  Schisuiatics.  229 

holy  and  ecumenical  synods."  '  The  books  referred  to 
were,  of  course,  the  deutero  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Cyril,  in  excluding  these  books  from  the 
divine  collection,  had  said,  "  these  twenty -two  books, 
which  the  Council  of  Laodicea  directed  to  be  read,  were 
alone  undoubtedly  canonical  ;  "  '  but,  with  the  fatuity  or 
inconsistency  characteristic  of  malicious  error,  he  over- 
looked or  ignored  the  fact  that  Baruch  was  among  the, 
books  directed  to  be  read  by  the  Fathers  at  Laodicea. 
The  aforesaid  Mogila  had  already,  in  1640,  written, 
as  it  was  first  called,  "  An  Exposition  of  the  Faith  of  the 
Russian  Church,"  in  which,  though  there  is  no  reference 
to  the  canon  of  Scripture,  Tobias  is  cited  in  Part  II., 
Question  xlvii.,  and  as  "  Sacred  Scripture  "  in  Part  III., 
Question  ix.  Wisdom  is  appealed  to  as  "  Sacred  Scrip- 
ture" in  Part  I.  Question  Ixvii,  Ecclesiasticus  is  introduced 
as  Scripture  "  in  Part  I.  Question  x,  and  again  as  "  Scrip- 
ture "  in  Part  I.  Question  xvi.  It  is  quoted  a  second 
time  in  the  same  Question.  It  is  met  with  again  as 
"Scripture"  in  Part  T.  Question  xxiii.  Before  that 
question  is  fully  answered  it  meets  us  again.  And  it  is 
also  citedas  "  Scripture  "  vaPart  III.  Question  xxiv.  The 
work  in  which  these  citations  are  found  is  simply  a  large 
catechism  with  short  questions  and  long  answers,  and  has 
since  been  entitled  by  Greeks  and  Russians,  "  i\n  Or- 
thodox Confession  of  the  Faith  of  the  Catholic  Apostolic 
Church  of  the  East."  It  was  revised  and  adopted  by  a  pro- 
vmcial  synod  in  Kiew  for  Russia  in  1640,  again  examined 
and  corrected  bv  a  council  of  Greeks  and  Russians  at 
Jassy,  in  1643,  Avhen  it  was  reduced  to  it  present  form 
by  Miletius  Syriga,  metropolitan  of  Nicasa,  and  exarch 
of  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople.  It  is  preceded  b}-  a 
preface  from  the  pen  of  Nectarius,  patriarch  of  Jerusa- 

'   Kimmel,  Monumenta,  Part  I.  416. 

-    Supra.,  211.  3  Kimmel,  Monurnenia.  Pari  I.  p.  p.  >)  6-324. 

^   Ibid,  p.  45. 


230  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

lem,  dated  at  Constantinople,  Nov.  20,  1662,  and  con- 
taining a  history  of  its  composition.  '  This  preface  is 
followed  by  a  statement  of  Parthenius,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  dated  March  11,  1643,  and  approving 
the  contents  of  the  catechism  as  found  in  the  Greek 
text. '  The  statement  is  signed  by  Parthenius,  the 
patriarchs  of  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Jerusalem,  and 
twenty-two  other  Greek  prelates.  Mogila's  catechism 
was  approved  again  by  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  in 
1672,"  and  is  therefore  regarded  as  an  authoritative 
exposition  of  the  creed  taught  by  the  schismatical 
Greek  and  Russian  Churches.  It  has  served  as  a  model 
for  several  catechisms  v.' ritten  since  by  Russian  divines, 
and  it  does  not  appear  that  in  any  of  them  the 
deutero  books  were  treated  with  less  respect  than  they 
received  in  it,  though  in  the  latest  of  such  works,  and 
that  even  by  the  highest  dignitary  in  the  Russian 
Church,  these  books  might  seem  to  be  treated  with  less 
consideration  than  the  others  belonging  to  the  Old  Tes~ 
tament. 

But  before  referring  more  directly  to  the  most  recent 
of  Russian  catechisms,  there  is  another  Russian  book 
we  must  mention,  one  which,  not  only  on  account  of  its 
age,  but  because  it  was  intended  for  aspirants  to  the 
clerical  state,  is  first  entitled  to  the  reader's  attention. 
An  English  translation  of  it  is  contained  in  a  work  on 
"  The  Doctrine  of  the  Russian  Church,  by  the  Rev.  R. 
W.  Blackmore,  B.  A.,  formerly  of  Merton  College, 
Oxford,  Chaplain  to  the  Russian  Company  at  Cronstadt. 
Aberdeen,  1845."  'The  book  which  Mr.  Blackmore  has 
translated  is  a  treatise  "  On  the  Duty  of  Parish  Priests," 
by  George  Konissky  (d.  1795),  archbishop  of  Mogileff 
and  White  Russia,  and  a  member  of  the  Russian  Sjmod. 
The  treatise,  we  are  told  by  the  translator,  has  been 
adopted  by  the  whole  Russian  Church.     It  gives  no  cat- 

'     Kimmel,  Momtmenta,  Part  I.,  p.  52.  -  Ibid.,  p.  336. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  231 

alogue  of  the  sacred  books,  but  informs  the  reader'  that 
he  will  find  them  enumerated  in  various  works,  amonj^ 
others  "  the  Council  of  Carthage,"  which  is  well  known 
to  have  included  all  the  books  approved  by  the  Council 
of  Trent.  But  the  treatise  is  well  provided  with  cita- 
tions from  the  Scripture,  and  among  those  citations 
are  several  from  the  deutero  books,  some  of  them, 
too,  adduced  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  doctrine. 
SiracJi  (Ecclesiasticus)  i.,  23;  ii.,  11,  is  cited  in  chap- 
ter xxxiii.,  p.  220.  Then  we  have  in  chapter  xlix.,  p. 
235,  ''And  nozv,  O  Lord,  I  take  not  this  my  sister  to  be 
my  wife  for  lust,  but  uprightly "  (Tob.  viii.,  7),  words 
which  the  priest  is  recommended  to  impress  on  the 
minds  of  those  who  are  about  to  be  married.  In  chapter 
liii.,  p.  269,  where  the  Scriptures  are  frequently  quoted, 
the  words,  "  The  sacrifice  to  God  is  a  contrite  spirit :  a 
contrite  and  humble  heart  God  tvill  not  despise^'  are  attrib- 
uted to  Ps.  li.,  17,  and  Ecclesiasticus  ^xy.,  17.  In  chapter 
xvi.,  part  ii.,  p.  281,  it  is  said  that  the  priest  ought  "  to 
pray  also  for  the  departed,  in  the  hope  and  faith  of  the 
resurre'ction  of  them  that  sleep  ;  of  this  we  have  a  certain 
assurance  both  from  the  Scripture  and  also  from  Christ's 
holy  Church  in  apostolical  and  primitive  times."  Then 
the  author  proceeds  to  the  proof  by  citing  Baruch :  "  O 
Lord,''  he  says,  ''Almighty,  TJion  God  of  Lsrael,  hear  now  the 
prayer  of  the  dead  Israelites  ....  and  remember  not  the 
iniquities  of  our  fore  fat  Jiers  (ch.  iii.,  4,  5).  In  the  second 
book  of  Machabees  it  is  written  :  All  tJiereforc,  praising 
the  righteous  judgment  of  the  Lord,  betook  themselves  unto 
prayer,  praying  that  the  sins  committed  might  be  blotted  out 
....  zvhereupon  He  made  a  reconciliation  for  the  dead,  that 
they  might  be  loosed  from  their  sin  "  (ch.  xii.,  41 — 46). 
After  this  several  Fathers  are  appealed  to  in  support  of 
the  same  holy  doctrine.  Has  it  ever  been  known  that 
a  writer  who  rejected  the  Tridentine  canon  made  use  of 
'  p.  163. 


232  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

such  citations  as  these?  No  Protestant  could  do  so 
without  repudiating  his  own  canon.  Whatever  may  be 
the  errors  of  the  Russian  schismatical  Church,  the  re- 
jection of  the  deutero  books  is  not  one  of  them.  Out- 
side the  circle  of  conglomerate  Protestantism  that  error 
finds  not  a  single  defender  at  this  moment. 

A  few  lines  above  it  was  said  that  in  the  latest  Russian 
catechism  the  deutero  books  might  seem  to  be  treated 
with  less  consideration  than  the  other  Old  Testament 
books.  That  remark  applied  to  the  catechism  written 
by  Philaret,  metropolitan  of  Moscow  (d.  1867).  A  trans- 
lation of  that  catechism  is  contained  in  Blackmore's 
book  mentioned  above  ;  we  are  thus  able  to  ascertain  the 
treatment  which  the  deutero  Scriptures  received  from 
one  of  the  latest  and  highest  ecclesiastical  writers  in  the 
Russian  Church.  Philaret  was  for  a  long  time  a  member 
of  "  the  Holy  Governing  Synod  "  at  St.  Petersburg, 
even  when  metropolitan  of  Moscow  ;  but  the  Czar 
Nicholas,  displeased  with  his  votes  at  the  meetings  of 
that  body,  at  last  intimated  to  him  that  he  would  be 
better  emplo3-ed  in  his  own  diocese.  Philaret  took  the 
hint  and  withdrew  to  Moscow,  no  dcnibt  glad  that  he 
was  not  suspended  or  even  degraded  bv  the  pope  of  all 
the  Russias.  His  catechism  is  entitled  "  The  Longer 
Catechism  of  the  Orthodox  Catholic  Church  of  the  East, 
examined  and  approved  by  the  most  Holy  Governing 
Synod,  and  published  for  the  use  of  schools,  and  of  all 
orthodox  Christians,  by  order  of  his  Imperial  Majesty. 
Moscow,  at  the  Synodal  Press,  1839."  ^'^  f'"-""  points 
the  catechism  is  opposed  to  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  Defining  the  Church,  it  ignores  the  supremacv 
of  the  Pope.  Referring  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  states 
that  He  proceeds  from  the  Father  alone.  Treating  of 
Baptism,  it  insists  on  a  trine  immersion  as  essential,  thus 
differing  from  the  Greeks,  and,  perhaps,  excludes  the 
deutero  books  from  the  canon.     We  say  perhaps,  for  it 


A  nwng  the  Sch isviatics.  233 

is  not  quite  certain,  as  the  following  references  show , 
that  it  reall}-  docs  so:  "  Q.  How  many  are  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament?  A.  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  St. 
Athanasius  the  Great,  and  St.  John  Damascene  reckon 
them  at  twenty-tiuo,  agreeing  therein  with  the  Jews,  who 
so  reckon  them  in  the  original  Hebrew  tongue.  Athanas. 
Ep.  xxxix.,^  De  Test.,  J.  Damasc,  Theol.,  I.  iv.,  c.  17  . . . ." 
''Q.  How  do  St.  Cyril  and  St.  Athanasius  enumerate  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  ?  "  "^  The  answer  to  this 
question  is  an  enumeration  of  the  22  books  as  they  are 
found  in  the  Protestant  Bible,  the  First  and  Second 
Samuel  of  the  latter  being  called  First  and  Second  Kings 
by  Philaret,  vvho  has  Paralipomenon  instead  of  Chroni- 
cles. Again,  "^.  Why  is  there  no  notice  taken,  in  this  enu- 
meration of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  of  the  book 
otthe  Wisdom  of  the  Son  of  Sirach,  and  of  certain  others  ? 
A.  Because  they  do  not  exist  in  the  Hebrew.  Q.  How 
are  we  to  regard  these  last-named  books?  A.  Athana- 
sius the  Great  says  that  they  have  been  appointed  of 
the  Fathers  to  be  read  by  prosel3^tes  for  admission  into 
the  Church."  ^  This  is  all  that  is  said  on  the  subject. 
In  the  enumeration  of  the  books  by  Philaret,  Esther  and 
I.  Esdras,  as  well  as  II.  Esdras  or  Nehemias  are  men- 
tioned, but  Baruch  is  omitted.  In  doing  so  Philaret  has 
contradicted  his  own  witnesses.  For  Esther  is  called 
non-canonical  in  the  Athanasian  Festal  Epistle  and 
Synopsis,  while  Esdras  and  Nehemias  are  omitted  in  the 
Athanasian  Festal  Epistle  and  Synopsis,  and  Baruch  is 
included  among  the  twenty-two  by  the  Athanasian  Festal 
Epistle  and  by  Cyril,  though  overlooked  by  Philaret. 
Whether  these  mistakes  of  Philaret  are  to  be  attributed 
to  ignorance  or  malice  we  cannot  say. 

At  any  rate,  it  may  reasonably  be  doubted,  whether 
Philaret  meant  to  exclude  the  deutero  books  from  the 

I  Otherwise  called  the  Festal  Epistle.  ^  P.  38. 

'  P  38,  39- 


234  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Test ame tit 

roll  of  Sacred  Scriptures.  For  he  has  appealed  in  his 
catechism  more  than  once  to  the  authority  of  Machabees. 
Thus  speaking  of  prayers  for  the  dead,  '  he  says  that 
the  doctrine  is  grounded  "  on  the  constant  tradition  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  the  sources  of  which  ma}^  be  seen 
in  the  Church  of  the  Old  Testament.  Judas  Machabceus 
offered  sacrifice  for  his  men  that  had  fallen  (II.  Mach. 
xii.  43)."  Machabees  must  therefore  belong  to  the 
Church  of  the  Old  Testament.  Again,  speaking  of  the 
special  duties  which  children  owe  to  their  parents,  he 
says,"  "  that  children  are  bound  after  the  death  of  their 
parents,  as  well  as  during  their  lives,  to  pray  for  the 
salvation  of  their  souls,"  and  cites  as  authority  for  this 
II.  Mach.  xii.  43-44,  Jerem.  xxxv.  18,  19,  as  if  these 
two  books  were  of  equal  authority.  Indeed,  in  all  these 
Russian  catechisms,  as  well  as  in  the  collections  of  con- 
ciliar  decrees  condemning  the  errors  of  Cyril  Lucar — de- 
crees enacted  by  Russians  as  well  as  Greeks — the  deutero 
books,  when  they  contain  any  text  applicable  to  the  mat- 
ter in  hand,  are  cited  indiscriminately  with  the  other 
parts  of  the  Bible.  This  was  the  general,  indeed,  the 
universal  rule  at  the  time  ;  and  the  writings  of  Philaret 
seem  to  offer  no  exception,  for,  not  only  in  his  Cate- 
chism, but  in  his  othei  compositions  which  we  have 
seen,  he  cites,  where  it  suits  him,  the  deutero  just  as  he 
does  the  proto  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Thus,  in  a 
volume  of  select  sermons  by  him,  published  in  London 
in  1883,  he  cites  Wisdom  in  Sermons  viii.  xiv.,  xv.,  xxi., 
twice  as  the  production  of  Solomon  ;  and  cites  Ecclesi- 
asticus  in  Sermons  xxiii.,  xxvii.,  these  being  the  only  two 
of  the  deutero  books  containing  texts  adapted  to  the  as- 
cetic and  devotional  character  of  the  sermons. 

So  far,  therefore,  as  a  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from 
the  use  made  of  the  deutero  books  by  the  Russian  theolo- 
gians, it  cannot  reasonably  be  denied,  that  the  canonicity 
'  P.  99.  '  P-  131- 


Among  the  Schisinatics.  235. 

of  these  books  is  admitted  bv  them.  In  fact,  this  infer- 
ence is  warranted  by  the  statement  of  Humphrey  Hody> 
the  Oxford  professor,  who  in  1705  remarked,'  that  the 
Muscovite  Bible,  which  is  a  translation  of  iihe  Septuagint, 
contains  all  the  deutero  books  mixed  among  the  proto,  and 
the  apocryphal  books  III.  and  IV.  Esdrasand  III.Mach- 
abees.  This  mixture  of  proto  and  deutero  books  in  the 
Russian  Bible,  no  doubt,  existed  from  the  time  when  the 
Scriptures  were  first  translated  into  the  Russian  lan- 
guage. It  could  not  be  otherwise,  since  that  Bible  is  a 
version  of  the  Septuagint,  in  which  the  deutero  books 
were  always  contained,  at  least  away  back  to  the  time 
when  the  apostles  delivered  it  to  their  converts,  and  in- 
deed long  before  there  was  a  Christian  to  receive  it. 
And  as  used  by  the  Greeks,  the  Septuagint  includes  these 
books  still.  For  Reuss,  Protestant  professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Strasburg,  after  adverting  to  the  abortive  at- 
tempt of  Cyril  Lucar  to  induce  the  Greeks  to  adopt  a 
mutilated  canon  by  citing  the  doubtful  authority  of  the 
Council  of  Laodicea,  and  to  the  condemnation  of  Cyril  by 
the  Greek  Council  of  Jerusalem,  remarks,^  "  So  far  as  I 
am  acquainted  with  the  modern  theological  literature  of 
the  Greeks,  no  voice  has  been  raised  to  make  appeal  from 
the  Fathers  of  Jerusalem  to  those  of  Laodicea.  I  have 
before  me  a  splendid  quarto  edition  of  the  Greek  Bible 
printed  at  Moscow,  in  1 821,  by  the  order  and  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Holy  Synod  of  the  Russian  Empire.  It 
contains  all  the  text  of  the  Septuagint,  and  even  more  ; 
for  we  find  in  it  two  recensions  of  Ezra,  and  four  books 
of  the  Machabees."  In  a  note  he  observes,  that  the  edi- 
tion contains  Baruch,  the  Epistle  of  Jeremias,  deutero 
Esther,  and  deutero  Daniel.  Of  course  it  does,  and  all 
the  other  deutero  books  intermingled  with  the  proto 
Scriptures.  Doubtless  this  edition  served  as  a  sort  of 
standard  for  the  current  Russian  Bible  published  by  the 

»   De  Bibl.  Text.,  p.  650.     -  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  Script.,  p.  287. 


236  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

Synod  at  St.  Petersburg^the  body  through  which  the 
Czar  governs  the  whole  Russian  Church.  Better  still, 
Cornely  states,'  that  Russian  Bibles  of  the  edition  ap- 
proved by  the  "  Synod  of  St.  Petersburg,"  in  1876,  contain 
not  only  the  deutero  books  in  their  proper  places,  but 
even  the  Prayer  of  Manasses  attached  to  II.  Paralipome- 
non,  III.  Esdras  after  I.  and  II.  Esdras,  and  IV.  Esdras 
after  the  two  books  of  Machabees  ;  and  adds,  this  is  the 
case  in  the  edition  of  1876,  approved  by  the  Synod  of 
St.  Petersburg.  But  best  of  all,  the  present  writer  has  at 
this  moment  before  him  a  Russian  Bible  published  in  1882 
at  St.  Petersburg,  with  "the  benediction  of  the  Holy 
Orthodox  Synod."  As  far  as  II.  Paralipomenon  inclusive 
the  order  of  the  books  is  the  same  therein  as  in  the 
Latin  Vulgate.  To  II.  Paralipomenon  is  attached  the 
Prayer  of  Manasses.  Then  follow  I.,  II.,  and  III.  Esdras, 
Tobias,  Judith,  Esther  with  its  deutero  parts.  Job,  etc. ; 
Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  follow  the  books  of  Solo- 
mon. After  the  prophecy  of  Jeremias,  we  have  his 
Lamentations,  then  his  Epistle,  which  in  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate is  the  sixth  chapter  of  Baruch,  then  the  five 
chapters  of  Baruch,  then  Daniel  with  its  deutero  parts. 
Last  of  all  and  after  the  Minor  Prophets,  we  have  I,  and 
II.  Machabees,  which  is  followed  by  III.  Machabees, 
and  that  by  IV.  Esdras,  which  closes  the  series  of  Old 
Testament  books.  It  is  generally  known  that  among 
Catholics  may  be  found  copies  of  the  Vulgate  contain- 
ing the  Prayer  of  Manasses,  and  III.  and  IV.  Esdras,  and 
probably  copies  of  the  Septuagint  containing,  besides 
these  apocr3^pha,  III.  Machabees.  But  it  is  also  known, 
at  least  by  Catholics,  that  these  books  are  there  with- 
out being  considered  by  the  Church  as  a  part  of  the 
canon.  Russian  Christians,  at  least  the  educated  among 
them,  cannot  have  forgotten  what  was  done  by  the 
i-epresentatives  of  their  Church  at  Jerusalem  and  Jassy. 

'^  Introd.  hi  S.  Scrip,  vol.  i.,  p.  I2I. 


AmoJig  the  Schismatics.  237 

Russian  Christians  may  therefore  very  reasonably  be 
supposed  to  cling  to  the  old  belief,  that  the  deutero 
books  are  canonical,  and  to  retain  in  their  Bibles  cer- 
tain apocryphal  writings,  because,  like  Catholics,  they 
consider  these  writings  of  some  value,  and  therefore  to 
be  retained  in  the  sacred  volume  as  the  best  means  of 
consulting  for  their  preservation,  without,  however,  as- 
signing them  a  place  on  the  canon,  Cornely  '  is  of  opinion 
that  Philaret  favored  the  error  of  Cyril  Lucar  regard- 
ing the  canon.  But  Cyril  discarded  the  deutero  books 
altogether,  declining  to  make  any  use  of  them  in  his  con. 
fession  ;  whereas  Philaret,  as  we  have  seen,  has  often 
employed  them  in  his  writings,  and  in  the  same  way  and 
for  the  same  purpose  as  he  has  availed  himself  of  the 
proto  Scriptures. 

The. authors  of  "  A  Catholic  Dictionary,"  in  an  article 
on  "  the  Russian  Chvirch,"  observe,  that  within  the 
present  century  the  works  of  English  and  German  Prot- 
estants bave  been  much  read  and  used  by  Russian 
scholars,  and  that  Philaret  was  the  founder  of  a  school 
devoted  to  the  study  of  such  works.  How  far  this  may 
be  so  we  have  no  means  of  judging  further  than  that 
Philaret  was  little  known  in  Germany,  though  much  ad- 
mired in  England,  where  some  of  his  writings  were 
translated  and  published.  He  was  often  called  upon  by 
English  travellers  anxious  to  bring  about  a  union  be- 
tween Anglicanism  and  Russianism,  and  he  may  have 
listened  to  their  propositions  with  courtesy.  But  so  far 
from  meeting  them  half  way,  as  the  silly  enthusiasts  ex- 
pected, it  does  not  appear  that  he  was  at  any  time  dis- 
posed to  make  them  the  slightest  concession.  Indeed, 
he  dared  not  do  so.  To  modify  the  creed  of  the  Rus- 
sian Church  belongs  to  the  Czar,  and  the  Czar  alone. 
But  though  Philaret  in  his  views  and  conduct  may  have 
failed  to  have  attained  the  high  standard  established  at 

'  Introd.  in  S.  Sci'ipt.,  Vol.  i.,  p.  121. 


238  The  Canon  of  tlic  Old  Testament 

Jassj  and  Jerusalem,  where  Calvinism  and  Luthei-anism 
received,  as,  thev  deserved,  no  quarter,  Russian  ortho- 
doxy will  probably  before  long  reassert  its  former  un- 
compromising character,  as  a  taste  for  the  study  of  the 
ancient  Fathers  and  their  own  early  writers  appears  to 
be  now  cultivated  by  many  among  the  younger  mem- 
bers of  the  Russian  clerg}-. 

These  remarks  on  the  past  and  present  of  the  Russian 
Church  would  be  incomplete  without  something  more 
than  a  passing  allusion  to  the  efforts  made  by  membsrs 
of  the  Anglican  communion,  in  order  to  obtain  recogni- 
tion from  the  Eastern  schismatics,  especiall}'  those  be- 
longing to  the  Russian  Church.  We  therefore  now 
propose  devoting  a  few  paragraphs  to  that  subject, 
while  some  of  those  who  took  part  in  the  last  attempt  of 
the  kind  are  still  living. 

After  James  II.  was  superseded  on  the  throne  of  Eng- 
land by  William  and  Mar)%  those  of  the  beneficed  cler- 
gy who  refused  to  violate  their  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
former  by  swearing  fealty  to  the  latter  incurred  the 
penalties  of  suspension  and  deprivation,  and  were  called 
"Non-Jurors."  The  spirit  by  which  the}-  were  actu- 
ated long  survived  them,  and  in  171 7  those  who  inherited 
it,  and  were  unwilling  to  transfer  their  allegiance  from 
the  representative  of  the  Stuarts  to  the  house  of  Han- 
over, under  a  sense  of  loneliness  turned  to  the  East  for 
sympathy  and  companionship,  hoping  to  obtain  from  that 
quarter  some  assurance  of  recognition  denied  them  at 
home.  The  persecuted  petitioners  were  four  Protes- 
tant bishops,  two  belonging  to  England,  and  two  to 
Scotland,  namely  (for  in  their  appeal  such  are  their  re- 
spective signatures) — "  Jeremias,  Primus  Anglire  Episco- 
pus;  Archibaldus,  Scoto-Britanniae  Episcopus  ;  Jacobus, 
Scoto-Britanniae  Episcopus ;  Thomas,  Angliae  Episco- 
pus— The  Catholic  Remnant  in  Britain,"  as  they,  mourn- 
ing over  the  afflictions  of  Sion,  patheticall}'  called  them- 


Among  t lie  Schismatics.  239 

selves.  To  matter  of  fact  Britishers  the  project  must 
have  seemed  quixotic,  and  so  it  may  at  first  have  been 
considered  by  those  who  engaged  in  it.  But  the}-  were 
encouraged  to  make  the  experiment  by  an  Egyptian 
schismatical  bishop,  then  in  England  begging  relief  for 
the  miserable  patriarchate  of  Alexandria.  Not,  how- 
ever, until  1723  did  they  receive  an  answer  from  the 
Greek  patriarchs,  and  then  they  were  told  by  these  digni- 
taries that,  "  Those  who  are  disposed  to  agree  with  us  on 
the  Divine  doctrines  of  the  othordox  faith  must  neces- 
sarily follow  and  submit  to  what  has  been  defined  and 
determined  by  ancient  Fathers  and  the  holy  ecumenical 
synods,  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  and  their  holy  suc- 
cessors, the  Fathers  of  our  Church,  to  this  time.  We 
sav,  they  must  submit  to  them  with  sincerity  and  obedi- 
ence, and  without  any  scruple  or  dispute.  And  this  is  a 
sufficient  answer  to  what  you  have  written."  For  the 
forlorn  "  Catholic  Remnant  in  Britain,"  this  was  a  peremp- 
torv  summons  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  surrender 
at  discretion.  Along  with  their  Ultimatum  the  patri- 
archs sent  a  copy  of  the  decrees  passed  by  the  Council  of 
Jerusalem  in  1672,  thus  notifying  the  British  "  Remnant  " 
that  they  would  have  to  renounce,  along  with  their 
other  errors,  the  mutilated  canon  of  Scripture  which 
had  been  foisted  on  them  and  their  countrymen  ;  for 
all  the  books  which  the  reformers  had  rejected  had  been 
pronounced  canonical  at  the  Council  of  Jerusalem.' 

"The  Remnant"  were  treated  with  more  considera- 
tion by  the  Russians.  For  "  the  Most  Holy  Governing 
Synod  "  of  St.  Petersburg,  in  transmitting  the  Ultima- 
tum of  the  Eastern  patriarchs,  proposed,  in  the  name  of 
the  Czar,  then  Peter  the  Great,  "  to  the  Most  Reverend 
Bishops  of  the  Remnant  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  Great 
Britain,  our  brethren  most  beloved  of  the  Lord,"  that 
they  should  send  two  delegates  to   Russia,   to  hold  a 

1  Vide  supra,  c.  xiv.,  and  Kimmel's  Moniimenta,  Part  I.  p.  467. 


240  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

friendly  conference  in  the  name  and  spirit  of  Christ, 
with  two  others  to  be  appointed  by  the  Russian  Church, 
that  thus  it  ma}-  be  more  easily  ascertained  what  may  be 
conceded  by  one  to  the  other,  and  what  may  be  for  con- 
science' sake  absolutely  denied."  The  conference,  howev- 
er, was  never  held,  as  the  death  of  Peter  the  Great,  in  1725, 
put  a  stop  to  further  negotiations.  It  may  be,  however, 
that  the  Russian  authorities  ceased  to  give  the  matter 
any  attention,  in  consequence  of  a  letter  from  Wake, 
Anglican  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  the  Patriarch 
of  Jerusalem,  in  which  the  writer,  besides  other  offensive 
names  applied  to  the  "  Remnant,"  denounced  them  as 
schismatics,  as  if  he  were  not  such  himself  or  something 
worse.  However,  among  the  Eastern  patriarchs  all 
Anglicans,  including  Wake,  and  the  "  Remnant,"  were 
accused  of  being  Lutheran-Calvinists,  while  among  the 
Russians  they  were  represented  as  infected  with  the 
same  "  German  heresy  "  which  had  already  been  con- 
demned by  the  orthodox  Church.  So  ended  the  first 
effort  on  the  part  of  English  Episcopalianism  to  frater- 
nize with  the  Greek  schism.  Its  failure  was  probably  at- 
tributed in  England  to  the  character  and  standing  of  the 
men  who  inaugurated  the  movement.  From  the  English 
establishment  or  the  English  crown  they  had  no  au- 
thority to  open  negotiations  with  Greeks  or  Russians; 
consequently  nothing  but  disappointment  was  to  be  ex- 
pected. Should,  however,  that  venerable  establishment 
condescend  at  any  time  to  extend  the  right  hand  of  fellow- 
ship to  her  sisters  at  Constantinople  and  St.  Petersburg, 
the  courtesy  was  sure  to  be  reciprocated.  And  Angli- 
cans, Greeks,  and  Russians,  if  not  united  in  the  bond  of  a 
common  creed,  would  become  brethren  in  the  Lord. 

These  fond  anticipations,  if  entertained  (and  of  this 
there  is  little  doubt),  were  not  put  to  the  test  until  after 
the  first  half  of  the  present  century  had  been  passed. 
Patrological  studies  had  already  engaged  the  attention 


Among  the  Schismatics.  241 

of  several  among  the  leading  minds  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land ;  the  Oxford  movement  had  opened  up  a  new  field 
of  enquiry,  and  given  prominence  to  several  questions, 
which  were  soon  regarded  as  critical  tests  of  revealed 
truth.  Were  Anglican  ministei's  real  priests  ?  Were 
Anglican  bishops  successors  of  the  apostles  ?  Were  the 
Anglican  sacraments  anything  more  than  mere  cere- 
monies? Had  the  Anglican  establishment  any  jurisdic- 
tion, except  what  it  derived  from  the  crown  ?  were 
questions  which  with  many  others  pressed  for  a  soku 
tion.  Meanwhile  members,  high  and  low,  learned  and 
unlearned,  belonging  to  the  established  Church,  were 
leaving  it  for  Rome,  convinced  that  the  former  was 
nothing  more  than  a  creature  of  the  state  ;  and  many 
who  still  remained  in  it  maintained  theii  position  only 
by  abandoning  the  studies  which  had  aroused  their  sus. 
picions,  or  by  doing  violence  to  their  conscience.  How 
was  an  end  to  be  put  to  this  painful  state  of  doubt  and 
uncertaint}-  ?  How  was  the  tide  of  conversion  from 
Anglicanism  to  Catholicity  to  be  checked  ?  Only  in 
one  way,  as  the  defenders  of  Anglicanism  believed,  by 
convincing  its  members,  that,  if  not  the  true  Church,  it 
was  a  branch  of  it.  But  how  was  this  to  be  done  ?  By 
effecting  (so  these  defenders  said)  intercommunion  be- 
tween the  Anglican  and  Russo-Greek  Churches,  which 
latter,  having  valid  sacraments,  a  valid  priesthood,  an 
apostolic  origin,  all,  in  fine,  that  is  necessary  to  constitute 
a  Church,  could  remedy  all  the  defects  inherent  in  the 
English  establishment.  In  this  view  of  the  case  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States,  as 
deriving  her  descent  from  the  Anglican  establishment, 
cordially  sympathized,  and  whatever  may  be  said  about 
the  influx  of  Russo-Greeks  into  the  United  States,  or 
a  desire  to  secure  the  right  of  interment  for  Angli- 
can travellers,  as  motives  for  bringing  about  some 
sort  ot  union   between   Episcopalians  on  the  one   hand 


242  The  Caiion  of  the  Old  Ttstai/icfit 

and  Greeks  on  the  other,  the  real  reason  of  the  move- 
ment towards  such  imion,  which  ccjmmenced  in  1862, 
was,  as  just  stated,  to  satisf}'  the  craving  of  large  num- 
bers in  the  Episcopalian  ranks  for  something  with  more 
of  the  characteristics  of  a  Christian  Church  than  what 
they  possessed  under  that  name.  True,  such  an  arrange- 
ment might  place  Churchmen  in  dangerous  proximity 
to  the  Czar  or  Grand  Turk.  But  even  the  latter  was 
less  to  be  dreaded  than  the  Pope. 

In  furtherance,  therefore,  of  this  scheme,  at  the  gener- 
al convention  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  held 
in  New  York,  October  1862,  a  joint  committe  was  ap- 
pointed '*  to  consider  the  expediency  of  opening  com- 
munication with  the  Russo-Greek  Church,  to  collect 
authentic  information  upon  the  subject,  and  to  report  to 
the  next  General  Convention."  On  July  ist  of  the  fol- 
lowing year,  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury  appointed 
a  similar  committee  looking  to  "  such  ecclesiastical  inter- 
communion with  the  Orthodox  East,  as  should  enable 
the  laity  and  clergy  of  either  Church  to  join  in  the 
sacraments  and  offices  of  the  other,  without  forfeiting 
the  communion  of  their  own  Church."  The  Episcopal 
Church  of  Scotland  also  encouraged  the  movement, 
the  success  of  which,  it  was  hoped,  would  secure  Angli- 
cans the  world  over  valid  baptism  and  a  valid  ministr}-. 
The  two  committees  corresponded  with  each  other,  and 
from  time  to  time  reported  progress  to  their  superiors. 
An  Eastern  Church  association  was  formed  in  England, 
and  another  in  the  United  States,  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  and  publishing  information  on  the  doctrines 
and  worship  of  the  Russo-Greek  Church  ;  visits  were 
made  to  Russia  ;  fraternal  letters  and  courtesies  were 
exchanged,  and  informal  conferences  were  held  between 
Anglican  and  Russian  dignitaries  in  London,  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  Moscow.  All  very  amusing,  especially  as  any 
union    between    Anglican   heresy  and    Russian    schism 


A  mo  ng  the  ScJi  is  uia  t  ics.  243 

would  have  required  the  sanction  of  the  Queen  of 
Enofland  and  the  Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias.  Not  to 
be  outdone  by  their  transatlantic  cousins  in  fraternal 
greetings  and  Christian  courtesies,  American  Episco- 
palians allowed  a  Russian  ex-priest  of  doubtful  anteced- 
ents to  celebrate  Mass  in  Trinity  Chapel,  New  York, 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  coronation  of  Czar  Alexander 
II.,  March  2d,  1865. 

The  sanction  or  even  toleration  of  Anglicanism  by 
the  Russo-Greek  Christians  was  not,  however,  to  be 
bartered  away  for  such  manifestations  of  courtesy. 
They  declined  to  grant  anything  beyond  the  privilege 
of  sepulture  to  Anglicans  in  consecrated  ground,  with- 
out, however,  any  proprietary  rights.  Some  were 
willing  to  admit  that  the  Anglican  Church,  by  retaining 
episcopacy  and  some  respect  for  antiquity,  "  attached 
her  bark  by  a  strong  cable  to  the  ship  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  while  the  other  Protestants,  having  cut  this  cable, 
drifted  out  to  sea  ;  "  yet  they  could  recognize  in  the  long 
run  no  essential  difference  between  Anglicanism  and  the 
other  Protestant  sects.  They  found  strange  novelties  in 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles ;  article  nineteen,  which  asserts 
that  the  Churches  of  Jerusalem,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch 
have  erred,  was  particularly  objectionable  to  them. 
Thej^  expressed  serious  doubts  about  the  validit}'  of 
Anglican  orders,  on  account  of  the  flaw  in  Parker's  con- 
secration. They  condemned  all  those  Anglican  ministers 
and  bishops  who,  in  violation  of  St.  Paul's  prohibition 
(I.  Tim.  iii.  2.),  indulged  in  the  lascivious  luxury  of 
second  marriage.  They  refused  to  recognize  the  valid- 
ity of  Anglican  baptism,  because  not  administered  with 
a  trine  immersion.  It  (jf  course  followed  that  they 
hardly  knew  whether  Anglicans  were  Christians  or 
pagans.  Before  a  proposition  for  intercommunion  could 
be  entertained,  the  Anglicans  were  given  to  understand, 
that  they  would  have  to  omit  the  Filioque  in  their  creed 


244  T^^^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

recognize  the  Seventh  Ecumenical  Council,  invoke  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  venerate  sacred  images,  pray  for  the 
dead,  believe  in  the  seven  sacraments,  practise  trine 
immersion,  accept  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation, 
and  admit  that  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  can  be  offered 
for  the  living  and  the  dead.  These  unpalatable  discov- 
eries were  made  by  Episcopalians  in  the  course  of  a 
correspondence  with  Greek  and  Russian  dignitaries,- 
from  about  1864  to  1870,  and  have  been  described  by  a 
Protestant  writer, '  whose  account  of  this,  as  well  as  of 
another  similar  subsequent  movement  to  which  we  now 
call  attention,  has  been  consulted  by  us. 

Hardly  had  the  Episcopalians  recovered  from  the 
shock  inflicted  by  the  censorious  and  dictatorial  tone 
with  which  their  overtures  for  intercommunion  were 
received  by  the  haughty  Russo-Greeks,  when  they  were 
inspired  with  fresh  hopes  of  success  on  learning  that 
the  famous  Dr.  Dollinger  of  Munich  had  invited  a 
conference  of  divines  favorable  to  the  reunion  of  Christ- 
endom, to  meet  and  consider  the  best  means  for  pro- 
moting so  laudable  an  object.  The  Doctor  had  been 
disappointed  in  his  attempt  to  formulate  a  successful 
protest  against  the  teaching  of  the  Vatican  Council. 
For  he  had  found  that  that  protest  had  been  reechoed 
by  none  but  a  contemptible  number  of  bad  self-styled 
Old  Catholics  among  his  countrymen,  while  almost  all 
who  had  admired  him  as  a  scholar  now  shunned 
him  as  an  apostate.  But  he  hoped  by  an  appeal  to 
heretics,  schismatics,  and  infidels  outside  Germany  to 
induce  some  of  them  to  unite  on  a  few  Christian  prin- 
ciples, as  well  as  on  a  denial  of  distinctively  Catholic 
truths,  and  thus  convince  the  world  that  he  and  they, 
though  essentially  differing  in  all  else,  really  constituted 
a  new  sect.  Here,  again,  however,  he  was  doomed  to 
disappointment. 

'  Schaff's  Creeds  of  Christendom,  ii.,  545,  seq. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  245 

The  conference  out  of  which  the  reunion  of  Christen- 
dom was  to  be  effected  was  held  in  Bonn,  September  14- 
16,  1874,  and  was  composed  of  about  forty  members: 
Greeks  and  Russians,  as  named,  to  the  number  of  four  ;  a 
number  of  English  Episcopalians,  of  whom  some  are 
mentioned  by  name ;  four  American  Episcopalians,  whose 
names  have  been  also  chronicled  ;  and  a  large  contin- 
gent of  Old  Catholics,  all  Germans,  among  whom  Dr. 
Dollinger  and  the  so  called  bishop  Reinkens  deserve 
special  mention.  Besides  Reinkens  there  were  present 
two  other  so-called  bishops,  Browne  of  Winchester, 
England,  and  Kerfoot  of  Pittsburg,  United  States. 
All  the  rest  seem  to  have  been  members  of  the  clerical 
fraternity  ranking  as  priests,  preachers,  and  professors. 
From  such  a  galaxy  of  learning  and  dignity  Dr.  Dollin- 
ger was  called  to  the  chair,  the  bishops  occupying  seats 
among  the  rank  and  file,  while  several  Lutheran  and 
Evangelical  theologians  and  ministers,  attracted  by  the 
novelty  of  the  scene,  were  present,  but  merely  as  spec- 
tators, to  witness  the  proceedings.  The  members  do  not 
appear  to  have  represented  any  person  or  any  creed  ex- 
cept themselves  and  their  own  individual  opinions.  For, 
Germans,  Greeks,  Russians,  English,  and  Americans, 
they  were  all  without  any  credentials  from  the  religious 
organizations  to  which  they  belonged  respectively. 

The  first  point  discussed,  probably  on  the  demand  of 
the  Russo-Greek  members,  was  the  procession  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  In  disposing  of  this  question  the  confer- 
ence, in  order  to  placate  Eastern  prejudice,  went  so  far 
as  to  "  agree  that  the  way  in  which  the  Filioqiic  was  in- 
serted in  the  Nicene  Creed  was  illegal,  "  expressing  at 
the  same  time  a  wish  that "  the  whole  Church  would 
consider  whether  the  Creed  could  be  restored  to  its 
primitive  form  without  sacrificing  any  true  doctrine  ex- 
pressed in  the  present  Western  form."  This  much  con- 
ceded to  the  Greeks  and  Russians,  the)%  no  doubt,  con- 


246  The  Canon  of  the  Old  TcsUDncnt 

sented  to  take  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  fourteen? 
articles  subsequently  passed  upon  by  the  conference, 
and  decided,  at  least  so  far  as  can  be  judged  from  the 
account  before  us,  by  a  majority  of  the  members. 
These  articles  treated  of  the  Scriptures,  Justification, 
Salvation,  works  of  Supererogation,  Number  of  the 
Sacraments,  Tradition,  Episcopal  Succession  in  the  An- 
glican Church,  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  Confession,  Indulgences,  Prayers  for  the  dead, 
and  the  Mass,  and  all  of  them  savored  more  or  less  of 
t'he  heretical  spirit  in  which  they  were  conceived. 

Among  the  questions  discussed  at  the  Bonn  Confer- 
ence was  the  canon  of  Scripture.  On  this  point  it  was 
decided  by  the  members  "•  that  the  apocryphal  or  deu- 
tero-canonical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  have  not  the 
same  canonicity  as  the  books  contained  in  the  Hebrew 
canon."  Dollinger  and  Reinkens  voted  in  favor  of  an 
article  declaring  "  that  the  Church  of  England,  and 
the  Churches  derived  through  her,  have  maintained  un- 
broken the  Episcopal  succession."  This  must  have  been 
extremely  gratifying  to  the  Anglican  members,  but  was 
offset  by  the  unpleasant  announcement,  that  the  Greeks 
and  Russians,  as  they  had  serious  doubts  on  the  point' 
declined  to  express  an  opinion  before  further  examina- 
tion ;  that  examination  was  never  made.  Again  Dollin- 
ger and  Reinkens  had  no  hesitation  in  denying  the  Im- 
maculate Conception  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  though 
Canon  Liddon  of  St.  Paul's,  London,  was  willing  to  tol- 
erate it  as  a  "  pious  opinion." 

A  second  Bonn  conference,  with  a  similar  purpose,  was 
held  August  10-16,  1875.  On  that  occasion  a  protest 
was  presented,  on  the  part  of  certain  English  Episco- 
palians, against  the  language  which  had  been  used  in 
the  previous  conference  regarding  the  Eucharist,  as 
being  inconsistent  "  with  the  language  of  the  English 
Book  of  Common   Prayer."     Canon  Liddon    dissented 


uliitom:  tilt-'  Schisuuxiics. 


247 


from  the  protest.  Dollinger  and  Reinkens  maintained  a 
discreet  silence.  It  was  evident  that  the  Anjjlicans, 
who,  in  order  to  obtain  some  sort  of  recognition  from 
Old  Catholics,  Russians,  and  Greeks,  had  been  so  profuse 
in  exchanging  fraternal  greetings  with  these  foreigners, 
were  not  of  one  mind  themselves.  At  this  second  con- 
ference, the  old  Catholics,  Oi'ientals,  and  Anglicans 
agreed:  1°  to  accept  the  ecumenical  synods  and  doc- 
trinal decisions  of  the  ancient  undivided  Church  ;  2° 
To  acknowledge  that  the  addition  of  the  Filioque  to 
the  symbol  did  not  take  place  in  an  ecclesiastically 
regular  manner;  3°  To  accept  what  was  taught 
regarding  the  Holy  Spirit  by  the  Fathers  of  the  undi- 
vided Church  ;  4°To  reject  every  form  of  expression  im- 
plying the  existence  of  two  principles,  or  beginnings,  or 
causes  in  the  Trinity.  Yet  the  Orientals  were  not  satis- 
fied, but  insisted  on  a  more  explicit  admission  of  their 
doctrine  regarding  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
To  propitiate  them  the  reckless  DoUingerites  and  obse- 
quious Anglicans  consented  to  adopt,  as  an  addition  to 
the  four  preceding  articles,  six  others,  based  on  the  in- 
terpretation which  the  Orientals  were  pleased  to  put 
upon  certain  statements  of  St.  John  Damascene,  in  ref- 
erence to  the  question  at  issue  ;  although  the  teaching  of 
this  Father  on  that  question  has  been  shown  to  be  consis- 
tent with  that  of  not  only  several  Latin  but  of  several 
Greek  Fathers,  who  wrote  long  before  his  time,  and  in- 
sisted that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and 
the  Son  as  from  one  principle.  Following  are  some  of  the 
propositions  which  the  imperious  Orientals  compelled 
their  abject  petitioners  from  the  West  to  adopt.  "  The 
Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father.  The  H0I3'  Spirit 
proceeds  not  from  the  Son.  The  Holy  Ghost  proceeds 
from  the  Father  through  the  Son,"  with  more  of  the  same 
sort.      Well  might  Professor  Schaff,  '  after  giving  an  ac, 

'    The  Creeds  of  Christendotn,  i.,  78. 


248  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

count  of  the  proceedings  at  Bonn,  remark :  "  The  Filioquc 
was  surrendered  as  a  peace-offering  to  the  Orientals ;  but 
the  Orientals  made  no  concession  on  their  part."  Yet  it 
has  never  been  heard,  that  any  Anglican  who  consented  to 
this  disgraceful  surrender  was  ever  called  to  account 
for  his  base  betrayal  of  a  fundamental  principle  in  the 
creed  of  his  Church.  It  is  unnecessary  to  add  what  is 
well  known  to  all,  that  the  Bonn  Conferences  brought 
the  Anglicans  and  the  Orientals  no  nearer  to  each  other 
than  they  ever  were.  Intercommunion  with  Anglican- 
ism is  not  and  never  has  been  sought  by  the  Russo-Greek 
Church.  And  the  only  condition  on  which  that  Church 
would  agree  to  such  an  arrangement,  is  an  absolute  sur- 
render, not  only  of  the  Filioqne,  but  of  all  else  whicli 
makes  Anglicanism  what  it  is.  Anglicans,  however,  still 
cherish  the  delusion  that  the  Orientals  will  meet  them 
half  way.  In  fact,  Anglicans  seem  never  to  come  to- 
gether in  any  number  without  discussing  the  subject. 
Even  in  the  last  Lambeth  Conference,  '  held  in  1888,  and 
composed  of  bishops  from  all  countries  where  Episco- 
palians are  found,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  con- 
sider the  Anglican  communion  in  relation  to  the  Eastern 
Churches,  and  to  the  Old  Catholics,  a  party  now  all  but 
extinct. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  canon  of  Scripture, 
according  to  the  order  in  which  the  articles  adopted  in 
the  first  conference  at  Bonn  are  given,  was  the  first 
question  considered,  as  if  the  members  desired  at  the 
start  to  agree  upon  the  books  whence  they  were  to 
draw  their  proofs.  In  this  matter  there  is  little  doubt 
that  the  Orientals  also  succeeded  in  having  their  own 
way,  for  while  the  article  on  "  the  Canon  and  the  Apo- 
crypha "  contradicts  the  Anglican  "  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,"  and  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  any  pub- 

1  Statementof  Anglican  Bishop  Potter,  New  York,  in  N'ew  York  Times,  Ang. 
13,  1888. 


Among  tJic  Schismatics.  249 

lished  belief  of  the  Old  Catholics,  who  were  prepai"ed 
to  admit  or  deny  anything,  provided  that  by  doing  so  a 
union  of  all  heresies  could  be  effected,  it  harmonized  suf- 
ficiently with  the  teaching  of  the  Russo-Greek  Church. 
At  first  sight  it  seems  vague  and  ambiguous.  But  to 
declare,  as  it  does,  that  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  have  not  the  same  canonicity  as  the  proto  is 
not  denying  but  asserting  the  canonicity  of  the  former. 
For,  if  a  book  be  canonical  at  all,  it  cannot  be  more  or 
less  canonical  than  another  that  is  so  absolutely,  since 
there  are  no  degrees  in  canonicity,  a  book  being  either 
canonical  or  non-canonical.  The  conference,  therefore, 
must  have  agreed,  at  the  dictation  of  the  Orientals, 
perhaps  convinced  by  their  arguments,  to  admit  the 
canonicity  of  the  deutero  books.  And  if,  by  declaring 
that  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  have  not 
the  same  canonicity  as  those  contained  in  the  Hebrew 
canon,  the  conventicle  at  Bonn  intended  to  say  that  the 
canonicity  of  the  latter  was  declared  by  the  Synagogue, 
and  that  of  the  former  by  the  Christian  Church  (the 
only  meaning  of  which  the  language  there  used  is  suscep- 
tible) no  one  can  object  to  the  statement  ;  wdiile  it  is  to 
be  supposed  that  the  conference  itself,  being  composed  of 
Christians,  believed  that  the  judgment  of  the  Church  in 
this  or  any  other  matter  was  at  least  as  authoritative  as 
that  of  the  highest  tribunal  among  the  Jews. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


The  Old  Testament  Canon  in  use  among  other 

SCHISMATICAL  BODIES  IN  THE  EaST. 

Besides  the  schismatical  Greeks  and  Russians,  there 
are  among  the  Orientals  other,  smaller  Christian  com- 
munities, whose  separation  from  the  Church  occurred  at 
a  much  earlier  date :  as,  the  Nestorians,  Copts  or  Egyp- 
tians, Jacobites,  Abyssinians  or  Ethiopians.  Yet  all  of 
these,  it  is  well  known,  include  the  deutero  books  in  the 
collection  of  inspired  Scriptures  which  they  still  possess. 
That  the  canon  m  use  among  the  Nestorians  comprises 
these  books  is  proved  by  the  testimony  of  Ebed  Jesu,  a 
Nestorian  bishop  (d.  1318),  in  his  "  Admirable  Tract  con- 
taining the  Divine  Books,"  etc' — a  work  in  Syriac,  trans- 
lated into  Latin  b}^  Abraham  Echellensis,  a  Svrian 
writer  (d.  1664).  Another  Latin  translation  of  the  same 
Tract  has  been  given  by  Joseph  Simon  Assemani,  also 
a  Syrian  writer  (d.  1768),  in  his  Bibliotheca  Orioitalis^^ 
wherein  it  is  remarked, '  that  Benassal  and  Abulbarcatus, 
collectors  of  canons  belonging  to  the  Egyptian  or  Coptic 
Church,  enumerate  among  the  sacred  books;  Wisdom, 
Ecclesiasticus,  Esther,  Judith,  Tobias.  A  learned  writer 
on  the  Dublin  Review,^  describing  the  belief  and  practice 
of  the  members  belonging  to  the  Coptic  CJinrcJi,  declares  : 
"  that  they  do  no  reject  any  of  the  sacred  writings 
which  we  (Catholics)  receive  as  canonical."  Assemani,^ 
"  states,    that     Gregorv  Barhebr^eus,    otherwise    called 

'   PP-  3'  5-  °  ^ol.  III.,  p.  5,  seq.  ^  Ibid.  p.  6,  note. 

"  Vol.  XXVIII.,  p.  328.  5  Bibl.  orient.,  vol.  iii.,  4,  note. 


A//io//ir  the  Schismatics. 


551 


Abulfaragius  (Aboulfaradje),  [d.  1286)  Mafrian  or  Pii- 
mate  of  the  Jacobites,  in  a  work  entitled  Horrciini  Mysterio- 
rutn,  has  expounded  many  of  the  sacred  books.  A  list 
<jf  the  books  thus  treated  is  given.  And  among  them 
are  included  Ecclcsiasticiis  and  dciitcro  Daniel,  with  most 
of  the  proto  books.  But  Paralipoincnoii,  Esdras,  and 
Esther  are  wanting.  It  could  not,  however,  have  been 
on  account  of  any  objection  to  these  last,  or  to  the 
other  deutero  books,  that  Barhebrasus  declined  to 
comment  upon  them.  For  Assemani  '  observes,  that 
Barhebraeus  called  the  simple  Syriac  version  of  the  Old 
Testament  "  rude,"  and  said  that  the  Septuagint,  "  which 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  and  other  peoples,  is 
proved  by  reason  and  authority  to  be  exact  and  complete 
in  all  its  parts."  Barhebrceus,  therefore,  received  the 
deutero  books,  although  he  failed  to  comment  on  several 
of  them,  as  well  as  on  some  of  the  proto  books.  Besides, 
the  Syriac  copy  of  the  Septuagint  must  have  been  well 
known  to  him,  for  he  states  in  the  preface  to  his  Horreum 
Mysterioruni  that  Paul,  Monophysite  Bishop  of  Tela, 
about  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  translated  the 
Old  Testament  of  the  seventy  interpreters  from  Greek 
into  Syriac.''  Indeed,  translations  of  the  Septuagint  into 
Syriac  must  have  been  made  long  before  that.  For  of 
one  such  translation  S.  Ephrem,  a  Syrian  writer  (d.  379),  is 
known  to  have  made  use,  and  even  to  have  cited  the 
deutero  books  '  contained  therein,  as  well  as  the  proto 
books. 

It  is  equally  certain  that  the  Bible  in  use  among  the 
Abyssinians  or  Ethiopians  contains  the  deutero  scriptures. 
In  fact,  Protestant  writers  frankly  admit  this,  and  Hody* 
has  even  given  a  catalogue  of  the  Abyssinian  sacred 
books,  showing  that  the  deutero  Scriptui-es  are  as  usual 

'  Ibid.,  ii.,  281.  -  Wiseman,  Hora  Syriaca,  p.  91, 

'  Kitto,  Cyclop.,  ii.,  809;  Davidson  on  Canon,  Encycl.  Britt. 
-•  De  Bibl.  Text.  650. 


252  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament 

interspersed  among  the  others  on  the  Abyssinian  canon. 
Similar  testimony  is  rendered  b}-  Job  Ludolf  (d.  1704,)  a 
learned  German  Protestant,  who  devoted  great  atten- 
tion to  the  language,  literature,  and  histor)-  of  Abyssinia, 
though  he  never  visited  any  part  of  the  East.  He  be- 
came acquainted,  however,  with  an  Abyssinian  abbot 
named  Gregory,  from  whom  he  derived  much  assistance 
in  his  studies  and  some  interesting  information  regard- 
ing the  canon  of  Scripture  among  the  Abyssinians.  He 
therefore  states, '  that  "  They  (the  Abyssinians)  divide 
the  Old  Testament,  which  contains  forty-six  books,  into 
four  principal  parts,  and  they  join  together  certain 
books  evidently  dissimilar  in  their  subject.  They, 
whether  through  carelessness  or  ignorance  is  uncertain, 
mix  apocrypJial  (deutero)  books  with  canonical.  Greg- 
ory certainly  confessed  that  he  had  never  heard  of  such 
a  word  (apocryphal).  The  first  tome  is  called  the  Law 
and  the  Octateuch ;  for  it  contains  eight  books,  which 
are  called  Creation,  Exit,  Scribes,  Numbers,  Tabernacles, 
(the  five  of  Moses)  Josua,  Dukes  (Judges),  Ruth.  The 
second  tome  is  called  Kings,  and  contains  thirteen 
books,  I.  and  H.  Samuel,  I.  and  H.  Hebrews,  which,  how- 
ever, they  more  commonly  call  the  Four  of  Kings,  as  is 
done  by  the  Greeks  ;  I.  and  H.  of  Minors  or  Inferiors 
(thus  they  seem  to  have  received  the  Paralipomenon  of 
the  Greeks)  ;  I.  and  H.  Esdras,  Tobias,  JiiditJi,  Esther,  Job, 
Psalms.  The  third  tome  contains  five  books  of  Solomon, 
Proverbs,  Discourse  (Ecclesiastes),  Canticle  of  Canticles, 
Wisdom  of  Sirach  (Ecclesiasticus).  The  fourth  tome, 
Prophets,  contains  eighteen  books:  Isaias,  the  prophecy  of 
Jeremias  and  his  Lamentations,  ^^?;v/t/!,  Ezechiel,  Daniel, 
twelve  minor  prophets,  Osee,  etc.  To  these  they  add, 
by  way  of  conclusion  (loco  coronidis)  two  books  of  Maeh- 
abees. "  Ludolf  further  states,  that  he  learned  in  the 
same  way  that  the  Abvssinians  had  all  the  twenty-seven 

'  Hist,  ^thiopica,  iii.,  c.  5. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  253 

books  of  the  New  Testament,  which  they  also  divided 
into  four  tomes,  adding  thereto  the  Constitutions  and 
canons  of  the  apostles  as  well,  probably,as  scjme  other 
really  apocryphal    books.      But  whether  these  are  re- 
o-arded  by  them  as  part  of  the  canon  docs  not  appear. 
This,  however,  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence,  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  they  do  not  add  to  but  insert  among 
the  proto  the  deutero  books,  thus  placing  it  beyond  all 
doubt  that  they  regard  the  latter  as  Sacred  Scripture. 
Gregory   would    probably  not    have    learned    from    his 
pupU  Ludolf,  whether  the  books  contained  in  the  appen- 
dix  to  the  Protestant  Old  Testament  were  considered 
canonical  or  not  by  all  Protestants.       It  is  hardly  neces- 
ary  to    remark,  further,  that    the    statements   of   other 
writers    coincide    substantially    with    those    of    Ludolf. 
Thus  Dr.   Davidson    admits  '  that  "  The  canon  of    the 
Abyssinian  Church  seems  to  have  had  all  the  books  of 
the    Septuagint,    canonical    and    apocryphal   (deutero) 
together,    little    (no)    distinction    being    made    between 
them  ;  "  and  David  Kay,  F.  R.  G.  S.,  mentions^  "  Copies 
of  the  Scriptures,  canonical  and  apocryphal"  (deutero), 
as  among  the  spoils  captured  at  Magdala  by  the  British 
expedition  in  1868. 

That  the  Ethiopic  or  Abyssinian  Bible,  therefore,  con. 
tains  the  deutero  books  intermingled  with  the  proto, 
just  as  they  are  now  and  ever  have  been  found  in  the 
Septuagint,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  That  the  Ethiopic 
Bible  is  a  translation  made  from  the  Septuagint  as  early 
as  the  fourth  century,  Protestant  writers  admit.^  From 
these  facts  the  reader  may  well  be  able  to  draw  his  own 
conclusion.  But  does  it  not  seem  that  Ludolf,  with  the 
mutilated  catalogue  of  books  in  the  volume  constituting 
his  own  Bible,  was  more  open  to  the  imputation  of  care- 
lessness or  ignorance  than  the  Abyssinians,  with  their  plen- 

i  Encycl.  Britt.  (canon).  '^  Ibid.  (Abyssinia). 

3  Kitto's  CycL,  ii.,  916. 


254  ^^l^<-'  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

ary  canon  of  Sacred  Scripture,  a  canon  approved  by  the 
great  majority  of  the  Christian  world  ?  That  Ludolf, 
however,  was  correct  in  his  statement  regarding  the 
books  received  as  canonical  by  the  Abyssinians  cannot 
be  doubted,  for  that  statement  is  confirmed  by  the  testi- 
mony of  John  Nicholson,  B.A.,  Oxford',  Ph.  D.,  Tubingen, 
who,  describing  '  the  "  Ethiopic  version,"  says  that  "This 
version  of  the  Old  Testament  was  made  from  the  Greek 
of  the  Septuagint,  according  to  the  Alexandrine  recen- 
sion, as  is  evinced,  among  other  things,  by  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  Biblical  books,  and  by  the  admission  of  the 
Apocrypha  (deutero  books)  without  distinction."  He 
then  gives  the  same  catalogue  of  books  which  Ludolf  re- 
ceived from  Abbot  Gregory. 

The  Armenians,  like  the  other  schismatics  whose  can- 
on has  just  been  described,  also  possess  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  all  its  fulness— a  fact  which  all  intelligent  Prot- 
estants recognize.  Indeed,  in  proving  that  the  Arme- 
nian bible  includes  the  deutro  books  we  need  only  tran- 
scribe substantially  what  has  been  said  by  a  Protestant 
writer  just  cited,  Dr.  Nicholson.^  "  It  appears,"  says  he, 
^'  that  the  patriarch  Isaac,"  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century,  "  first  attempted,  in  consequence  of  the  Persians 
having  destro3'ecl  all  copies  of  the  Greek  version,  to 
make  a  translation  of  the  Peschito;"  With  the  assistance  of 
Miesrob,  the  royal  secretary,  Isaac  completed  the  under- 
taking. But  two  pupils  of  Miesrob  having  brought  back 
from  the  Council  of  Ephesus  "  an  accurate  copy  of  the 
Greek  Bible,  the  translation  from  the  Peschito  was  "  laid 
aside,"  and  the  decision  taken  "  to  commence  anew  from 
a  more  authentic  text."  Miesrob,  however,  having  only 
an  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language,  "  sent  his 
pupils  to  Alexandria  to  acquire  accurate  Greek  scholar- 
ship, and,  on  their  return,  the  translation  was  accom- 
plished  In  the  Old  Testament  this  version  adheres 

'   Kitto's  Evcycl.,  i..  669.  "^  Ibid.,  220. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  255 

exceedingly  closel}^  to  the  lxx.,  (but  in  the  books  of  Dan- 
iel has  followed  the  version  of  Theodotion)," — a  peculi- 
arity of  the  Vulgate.  It  may  be  added  that  in  the  sixth 
centur}-  the  Peschito  was  employed  in  correcting  this  Ar- 
menian version,  and  at  a  later  period  the  Latin  Vulgate 
was  used  for  the  same  purpose.  No  doubt,  it  was  for 
this  reason  that  Humphrey  Hody  ^  said  that  "  the  Ar- 
menian Bible,  which  has  been  printed,  was  translated 
from  the  Latin  Vulgate."  Of  course,  it  follows  from  all 
this,  however,  that  the  Armenians  included  the  deutero 
Scriptures  in  their  copies  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Indeed,  it  is  an  undisputed  fact  that  all  the  early  ver- 
sions of  the  Old  Testament  intended  for  the  use  of  Chris- 
tians were  made  from  the  Septuagint,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Peschito,  made  from  the  Hebrew,  so  some  say,  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  but  embracing  at  an  early  period 
all  the  deutero  Scriptures  found  in  the  Septuagint  as 
well  as  in  the  Latin  Vulgate,  which  we  owe  to  St.  Je- 
rome.^ On  this  point  there  is  no  diversity  of  sentiment 
between  Catholics  and  Protestants.  Indeed,  the  latter 
not  only  concede  but  insist  on  the  fact.  The  Coptic  or 
Memphitic,  the  Thebaic  or  Sahidic,  the  Bashmuric — all 
of  Egypt — the  Ethiopic,  the  Georgian,  the  Slavonic,  the 
Gothic,  the  Armenian,  the  figured  Syriac,  some  of  them 
written  as  early  as  the  first  or  second  century,  and  none 
of  them  later  than  the  ninth,  have  been  all  made  from 
the  Septuagint  and  were  designed  for  the  use  of  the  sev- 
eral Christian  Communities  after  which  they  are  respect- 
ively named,  these  communities  being  settled  in  the  East 
or  in  countries  more  or  less  under  Greek  influence.  In 
the  course  of  time,  the  bond  of  a  common  faith,  by  which 

1  De  Bibl.  Text.,  650. 

"^  Jerome,  in  the  fifth  century,  translated  from  the  Hebrew  all  books  in  the 
Hebrew  canon  at  the  time,  and  Tobias  and  Judith  from  the  Chaldaic.  But 
the  other  deutero  books  as  contained  in  the  Veins  Itala  were  always  included 
in  his  version. 


256  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

they  were  united  to  a  common  centre,  was  broken,  and 
they  were  split  into  jarring  factions,  each  however  re- 
taining vvnth  more  or  less  error  some  portion  of  the  creed 
which  it  pn^fessed  on  embracing  the  Christian  religion. 
Provided  from  the  time  of  their  conversion,  or  soon  after, 
in  every  instance  with  a  copy  or  version  of  the  Septuagint, 
each  in  its  own  language,  these  schismatical  communi- 
ties have  thus  preserved  among  them  to  the  present  day 
the  Sacred  Scriptures  as  they  received  them  from  their 
first  teachers.  And  in  those  Scriptures,  so  far  as  Euro- 
pean scholars  have  been  able  to  push  their  enquiries,  these 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  Protestants  have  re- 
jected, have  always  been  foimd.  If  any  objection  can 
be  urged  against  the  canon  of  Scripture  followed  by  any 
of  these  schismatics,  it  will  be  on  the  score  of  excess,  not 
of  defect.  The  presence  of  the  pra3^er  of  Manasses, 
III.  and  IV.  Esdras,  III.  Machabees,  in  Russian  Bibles, 
or  the  Gospel  of  Tatian  among  the  Scriptures  of  the  Nes- 
torians  in  Hindostan,'  shows  that  those  whom  we  have 
classified  as  shismatics,  whether  in  the  East  or  West,  are 
disposed  to  unduly  augment,  rather  than  impiously  mu- 
tilate the  canon,  though  in  these  two  and  other  such  in- 
stances that  might  be  cited  it  might  be  found  that  the 
superfluous  books  have,  after  all,  no  canonical  authority 
among  the  educated  portion  of  the  schismatics  by  whom 
they  are  preserved.  Something  more  than  the  mere  use 
of  a  professedly  scriptural  book  by  any  religious  sect  is 
required  to  prove  that  its  possessors  regard  it  as  part 
of  the  Bible  ;  were  it  otherwise,  not  a  few  staunch  Prot- 
estants would  be  called  to  account  for  adopting  the  Tri- 
dentine  canon.  But  whether  in  some  exceptional  cases 
schismatics  have,  or  have  not,  attempted  to  canonize 
apocryphal  books,  it  is  certain  that  all  those  schismatical 
bodies  named  above,  and  they  constitute  the  great  bulk 
if  not  the  sum  total  of  all  such  Christians,  reckon  among 

'   Dublin  Review,  vol.  XVI.,  p.  145. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  257 

the  contents  of  the  Old  Testament  those  very  Scriptures 
which  are  included  in  the  Catholic  canon,  but  have  been 
generally  rejected  by  Protestants  as  apocryphal. 

Indeed,  this  follows  not  only  from  the  evidence  so  iar 
submitted,  and  derived  in  a  great  measure  from  schis- 
matical  and  Protestant  sources,  but  from  the  deliberate 
statements  made  by  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
Oriental  scholars  whom  Europe  has  produced. — Abbe 
Renaudot  (d.  1720).  He  is  the  author  of  several  learned 
treatises — La  Pcrpetiiite  de  la  Fol,  Historia  patriarchariim 
Alexandrinornin,  Defense  de  la  Perpetuite  de  la  Foi,  Litur- 
gia  Orientaliuvi  collectio,  etc.,  published  in  his  lifetime.  But 
his  learned  dissertations  on  the  Oriental  versions  of  the 
Scripture,  the  Arabic  versions  of  the  Scripture,  the  Arabic 
versions  of  the  Scripture  according  to  the  Septuagint,  the 
Books  of  Sacred  Scripture,  and  the  various  Oriental  versions 
of  them,  the  antiquity  and  authenticity  of  the  Sacred  Books, 
remained  in  manuscript,  until  they  were  printed  in  vol. 
I.  of  the  Cursus  Completus  Scripttircs  Sacrce  by  Abbe 
Migne.  It  is  now  proposed  to  show  by  extracts  from^ 
these  dissertations,  that  the  Oriental  schismatics  include 
the  deutero  books  among  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

"  All  the  Melchite,  Jacobite,  and  Nestorian  churches^ 
as  many  of  them  (says  Renaudot)  as  venerate  the  name 
of  Christ  in  the  East,  in  numbering  the  books  of  the 
Sacred  Scripture,  follow  the  same  plan  with  the  Roman 
and  Greek  Church,  and  have  certainly  the  same 
canon,  as  we  call  it.  For,  whatever  writings  have 
reached  us  from  their  present  patriarchs  clearly  at- 
test that  all  those  books  which  modern  heretics  have 
called  apocryphal,  because  they  were  not  found  in  the 
canon  of  the  Hebrews,  are  considered  by  the  Orientals 
part  of  the  divine  Scriptures,  no  less  than  those  others, 
about  whose  authority  all  are  agreed.  Nor,  regarding 
these  latter  books,  was  there  a  different  opinion  enter. 


258  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

tained  by  the  ancient  Melchite,  Jacobite,  and  Nestorian 
theologians,  out  of  whose  statements  a  collection  of 
canons  has  been  compiled  by  Ebnassal,  who  has  inserted 
the  following  catalogue  in  the  second  chapter  of  his 
work."  From  the  catalogue  it  appears,  that  all  the 
deutero  books  were  inserted,  by  the  theologians  named, 
among  the  proto  books,  with  the  exception  of  Ecclesias- 
ticiis  and  MacJiabecs,  which  are  mentioned  as  "  outside 
the  books  which  the  Faithful  in  the  Church  receive." 
On  this  Renaudot  remarks,  that  Ebnassal  "  in  this  cata- 
logue seems  to  exclude  Ecclesiasticiis,  which  Severus, 
Bishop  of  Ashmonin,  also  omits  in  his  life  of  the  patri- 
arch Demetrius ;  nevertheless,  it  is  enumerated  by 
other  authors,  but  particularly  by  Abulfaragius,  who 
wrote  out  a  very  copious  catalogue  of  Arabic  books 
which  were  extant  eight  hundred  years  before,  and  on 
the  other  hand  does  not  mention  Judith,  Tobias,  or 
Machabees;  but  there  are  extant  catalogues  of  the  Sa- 
cred books  in  various  collections,  and  in  all  of  them  all 
the  books  which  we  Latins  recognize  are  enumerated 
as  written  by  divine  authority.  So  also  the  Nestorian 
author  Ebed  Jesu  in  the  Chaldaic  catalogue  published 
at  Rome  enumerates  all  of  these  books,  and  not  one 
commentary  do  we  see  on  Wisdo7n  and  Ecclesiasticiis,  of 
which  some  are  extant  in  the  Royal  Library,  written  in 
Arabic  and  Syriac ;  often,  too,  are  these  books  found  cit- 
ed in  the  writings  of  Oriental  theologians."  * 

Referring  to  the  indiscriminate  use  made  of  the  ver- 
sions of  Scripture  based  on  the  Hebrew  and  Greek, 
Renaudot  observes,  that  "  after  the  version  of  Jerome 
was  consecrated  by  the  public  use  of  the  churches,  the 
other  ancient  one,  which  has  remained  intact  in  man}- 
parts  of  the  ecclesiastical  offices,  was  not  immediately 
cast  aside,  nor  that  according  to  the  seventy  interpreters, 
which  the  Church  not  onlv  has  preserved  in  the  entire 

'   Curstis  Compl.  S.  S.,  Tom.  1.,  col.  701,  702.  703. 


A  mong  the  Sc/i  is  in  a  tics.  259 

Book  of  Psalms,  but  has  taken  from  it  the  books  which 
were  not  extant  in  Hebrew.  The  discipline  of  the 
Syrian  Christians  was  exactly  the  same,  even  before 
the  Church  was  rent  into  three  parts  (by  the  two  most 
famous  heresies,  which  alone  of  the  ancient  heresies  sur- 
vive— the  Nestorian  and  the  Jacobite) ;  which  is  a  certain 
evidence  of  extreme  antiquity,  for,  although  the  faith 
was  subverted,  the  discipline  in  that  particular  under- 
went no  change.  All  the  Syrians  from  the  beginning 
read  in  their  own  language  the  Scriptures  translated 
from  Hebrew  copies ;  they  have  nevertheless,  like  the 
Latins,  Wisdom  and  Ecclcsiasticus,  JiiditJi,  Machabees,  and 
certain  other  parts  of  the  Scripture,  which  do  not  occur 
in  the  books  of  the  Hebrews.  Besides,  they  have  a  ver- 
sion according  to  the  sevent}'  interpreters,  and  although 
it  is  not  the  custom  to  have  it  read  publicly,  neverthe- 
less it  is  regarded  as  authoritative  among  them,  as  is 
shown  by  the  commentaries  of  the  Syrian  doctors. 
With  that  common  sentiment  of  Protestants,  which  es- 
timates all  the  value  of  Oriental  versions  according  to 
the  degree  of  resemblance  which  they  have  to  Hebrew 
copies,  they  have  no  sympathy  whatever ;  but  as  they 
received  from  the  Church  codices  of  the  Scriptures, 
although  they  passed  to  her  through  the  hands  of  the 
Jews,  who,  as  St.  Augustine  says,  are  our  book  carriers, 
the  Orientals  in  like  manner  receive  still  from  that  same 
mother  versions  of  the  same  codex."  ' 

Then,  after  copying  two  indexes  of  the  sacred  books, 
as  arranged  in  Arabic  Bibles,*  Renaudot  makes  the  fol- 
lowing remarks :  "  These  indexes  show  that  those  who 
made  the  Arabic  translation  from  the  original  Hebrew 
or  the  ancient  Syriac  version,  did  not  so  follow  the 
authority  of  the  present  Jewish  books,  as  if  they 
thought  that  books  not  extant  in  the  Hebrew  did  not 
belong  to  the  Scriptures ;    but   they  did   exactly  what 

1   Ciirsus  Completus  S.  S.,  I.,  634. 


26o  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

had  been  done  by  the  Roman  and  all  the  Latin 
churches,  as  well  as  the  xA.lexandrian  and  Syrian 
churches  ;  that,  is  they  acknowledged  these  same  books 
to  be  legitimate  and  divine  which  were  extant  in 
Greek  only,  instead  of  rejecting  them  as  apocryphal, 
which  the  Protestants  have  done,  contrary  to  the  ex- 
ample and  laws  of  the  ancient  Church.  And  this  is  the 
constant  tradition  of  all  the  Oriental  Churches,  and  all 
these  books  which  are  enumerated,  whether  on  the  canon 
of  the  Jews  or  on  the  canon  of  the  Catholic  Church,  are 
cited  by  their  theologians  in  the  x^rabic  translation."^ 
Renaudot  also  cites'  the  testimony  of  Monophysite  bish- 
ops in  Cilicia  and  Persia  to  prove  that  the  Armenians  re- 
ceived the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

There  is  therefore  on  record  overwhelming  evidence 
not  only  from  Catholic,-but  schismatical  and  Protestant 
sources,  to  prove,  that  those  Greek,  Russian,  and  Ori- 
ental Christians,  between  whom  and  the  Catholic  Church 
no  bond  of  union  exists,  include  among  the  Sacred  Script- 
ures those  very  books  which  Catholics  have  in  their 
canon,  but  which  Protestants  reject  as  apocryphal. 
These  schismatics  have  been  separated  from  the  centre 
of  Catholic  unity,  some  of  them  for  four,  others  for 
fourteen  centuries.  Their  exclusion  from  the  pale  of 
the  Church  was  the  penalty  inflicted  on  them  principally 
in  consequence  of  error  persisted  in  regarding  the  Trin- 
ity, or  the  nature  of  the  Redeemer,  or  the  prerogatives 
of  his  Vicar.  That  their  canon  of  Scripture  is  the  same 
now  as  it  was  the  day  in  which  they  became  schismatics 
is  certain.  For  it  cannot  be  supposed,  that  after  revolt- 
ing from  Rome  they  would  have  modelled  their  canon 
after  a  Roman  standard,  or  that  Rome  would  have  reg- 
ulated hers  after  a  pattern  prescribed  by  rebels,  had  it 

1  Cursus  Completes  S.  S.,  Tom.  I.,  col.  668.  66g. 

-  La  PerpHuite  de  la  Foi,  torn.  III.,  pp.  560,  566,  cited  by  Franzelin,  De 
Div.Tiad.  et  Scrip.,  p.  441. 


A  mong  the  Sch  ismatics.  26 1 

been  possible  for  the  latter,  if  not  possessed  of  a  canon 
already,  to  have  agreed  on  one.  The  schismatics,  there- 
fore, had  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  among 
their  Sacred  Scriptures,  when  they  separated  from  the 
Catholic  Church.  But  where  did  they  get  them,  and  how 
was  it  that  they  looked  upon  them  as  part  of  God's 
revealed  word  ?  Any  sincere  Protestant  will  find  these 
two  questions  answered  by  some  of  his  own  most  respec- 
table writers,  in  a  way  which  will  convince  him  that 
to  exclude  the  deutero  books  from  the  Old  Testament 
is  contrary  to  Apostolic  authority  and  to  the  practice  of 
the  primitive  Christians.  Walton,  for  instance,  in  his 
remarks  on  the  Septuagint,  ^  says  that,  "  with  the  sole  ex- 
ception of  the  Syriac  [the  S3'rians  soon  after  their  con- 
version had  a  translation  of  the  Septuagint  in  their  own 
language],'' rt:// //^^  versions  approved  from  antiquity  by  the 
Church,  viz.,  the  Arabic,  the  Ethiopic,  the  Armenian, 
the  Illyrian,  the  Gothic,  the  Old  Latin  before  Jerome, 
were  made  from  this  "  (the  Septuagint).  Nor  does  the 
Greek  Church,  or  the  Orientals,  acknowledge  any  other 
to  this  day,  being  content  with  it  alone.  It  the  Fathers 
and  Theologians  illustrated  by  their  commentaries,  and 
cited  in  their  writings,  Ignatius,  both  Clements,  Justin, 
Tertullian,  Irenaeus,  Cyril,  Basil,  Theodoret,  Gregory, 
Chrysostom,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Hilary,  and  the  entire 
venerable  choir  of  the  ancients,  those  pristine  lights  of 
the  Church,  who  were  illustrious  for  their  doctrine  and 
sanctity.  Out  of  it  they  proved  the  truth  of  doctrine, 
and  overthrew  errors  and  heresies,  drew  rules  of  life 
and  discipline.  Yea,  it  was  used  by  the  most  holy 
Fathers  in  councils  provincial  and  general."  And  this 
same  Septuagint  version,  with,  remember,  the  deutero 
books,  "  was  in  use  by  the  Apostles,  and  the  Christians 
after  Christ."  ' 

1  Proleg.  ix.  I.  ^  Ibid.  xiii.  Ii.  '  Ibid.  ix.  34. 


262  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament 

And  "these  books,"  says  Dr.  Wright/  another  Protes- 
tant writer,  "  seem  to  have  been  included  in  the  copies  of 
the  Septuagint,  which  was  generally  made  use  of  by  the 
sacred  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  . .  .  the  only  copies 
of  the  Scriptures  in  existence  for  the  first  three  hundred 
years  after  Christ,  either  among  the  Jews  or  Christians 
of  Greece,  Italy,  or  Africa,  contained  these"  deutero 
"  books,  without  any  distinction  that  we  know  of." 
Equally  candid  and  significant  is  the  testimony  of  a  lat- 
er Protestant  writer.  Professor  Welhausen,  who  says  "^ 
that  "the  Septuagint  came  into  general  use  with  the 
Grecian  Jews  even  in  the  Synagogue.  Philo  and  Joseph- 
us  used  it,  and  so  did  the  New  Testament  writers.  " 

With  the  single  exception  of  Syria,  where,  however,  a 
version  of  the  Septuagint  was  earlv  introduced,  every 
country,  as  soon  as  it  became  Christian,  was  supplied 
with  the  Septuagint,  or  a  translation  from  it  in  the 
vulgar  tongue,  in  the  first  instance  by  the  Apostles,  or 
those  who  succeeded  them  in  the  Christian  ministry. 
Each  copy  or  translation  of  that  venerable  Alexandrian 
codex  as  well  as  of  the  Latin  Old  Testaments  contained 
the  deutero  books  not  only  "  without  any  mark  of  dis- 
tinction, "  but  actually  intermingled  among  the  rest  of 
the  books,  as  the  Anglican  bishop  Marsh  '  confesses. 
The  citations  which  have  been  just  given,  and  others 
produced  already,  most  of  them  derived  from  Pro- 
testant sources,  amount  to  nothing  less  than  this. 
If,  therefore,  it  be  asked,  where  did  the  schismatics 
get  the  deutero  books  ?  every  honest  man,  whether 
Protestant  or  infidel,  must  answer:  In  those  copies 
of  the  Bible  which  their  Catholic  forefathers  had. 
If  the  question  be  proposed,  how  was  it  that  the 
schismatics  looked  upon  these  books  as  part  of  the  re- 
vealed word  ? — for  that  they  now  do  and  have  alwa3's 
done  so,  has  been  proved — the  only  repl}'  possible  for 
any  one  who  respects  the  testimony  of  the  Protestant 

1  Kitto's  Cycl,  I.-,  553,  554.  '^  Encycl.  Brill.  Septuagint. 

^  Comparative  View  p.  89. 


Among  the  Schismatics.  263 

authors  already  quoted  is:  These  schismatics  were  so 
taught  by  their  Catholic  ancestors,  who  were  so  told 
by  those  who  converted  them  to  the  Christian  religion, 
perhaps  an  Apostle  or  some  other  teacher  who  spoke 
in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


The  Canon  among  the  Sects  from  the  First  to 
THE  Fourteenth  Century. 

By  sects  are  here  meant  those  fragraentar}^  portions, 
(national  or  local)  of  Christendom,  among  which  all 
ecclesiastical  authority,  in  the  last  analysis,  resolves  it- 
self into  individual  will;  and  religious  opinion,  taking  the 
place  of  divine  faith,  is  as  uncertain  as  changeable, 
as  absurd,  and  often  as  dangerous,  as  some  of  the  scien- 
tific, social,  or  political  theories  which  sometimes  occup}' 
the  attention  of  otherwise  well  balanced  minds;  whereas 
the  belief  of  schismatics,  whatever  it  be,  is  generally 
constant,  unchangeable,  and  regulated  not  by  private 
caprice,  but  bv  traditional  respect  for  ancient  symbols, 
or  the  voice  of  living  teachers.  Thus  the  Oriental 
schismatics  retain  almost  the  same  truths  and  the  same 
errors, which  they  professed  when  first  separated  from 
the  centre  of  unity ;  while  the  sectarists  have  made  so 
many  changes  in  their  creeds,  that  there  is  not  now,  and 
never  has  been,  a  community  among  them  that  would 
be  recognized  by  its  founder  as  the  legitimate  and  logi- 
cal outgrowth  of  the  society,  which  he  organized. 

The  authors  and  members  of  these  heretical  sects 
have  been  notorious  at  all  times  for  desecrating  the 
Bible,  by  falselv  interpreting  its  meaning  in  support  of 
their  errors  ;  and  when  this  could  not  be  done,  by  mis- 
translating or  corrupting  its  text,  by  repudiating  such  of 
its  books  as  condemned  their  wicked  principles,  or  by 
engrafting  on  it  apocryphal  writings,  which  sanctioned 

264 


The  Canon  of  the  O.  T.  Among  the  Sectarists.        265 

their  blasphemous  theories.     Long  before  the  Christian 
era  the  Samaritans  had  rejected  all  of  the  Old  Testament 
except   the    Pentateuch.      The    Sadducees   (some    say, 
though  others  deny  it),  in  addition  to  other  errors,  had 
excluded  from  the  Sacred  Scriptures  all  the  books  of  the 
Prophets.      And  the  Pharisees  had  made  void  the  word 
of  God  by  their  tradition.'      And  hardly  had  the  Chris- 
tian era  dawned,  when  the  whole  body  of  the  Jews,  no 
longer  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  denounced  as  hu- 
man and  apocryphal  several  books  which,  according  to 
the  best  evidence,  they  had  formerly  revered  as  divine. 
Irenseus,    Tertullian,    Eusebius,    Epiphanius,    Philas- 
trius,    Augustine,  with   other    Fathers,  whom    modern 
writers  as  Natalis  Alexander,  Bergier,  etc.,  have  cited, 
show  that  the  ancient  Christian  sectarists,  like  those  of 
recent  times,  when  they  did  not  wrest  the  Bible  to  an 
unnatural  and  heterodox  sense,  discarded  its  authority 
altogether.    And  this  is  true  of  them  all  from  the  first  to 
the  last.     The  heretics  of  the  first  three  centuries,  when 
they    found    that  the    Scriptures   stood    in    their  way, 
very  generally  denied   their   divine   origin   absolutely. 
In  the  ages  that  followed,  the  propagators  of  error,  with 
less  audacity  but  more  cunning,  instead  of  venturing  to 
question  outright  the  title  of    God's  written  word   to 
their   obedience,  commonly    distorted   its    meaning    or 
vitiated  its  text,  when  they  met  with  passages  unfavor- 
able to  their  own  perverse  opinions. 

THE  CANON  AMONG   THE   SECTS   OF  THE   FIRST  CENTURY. 

I.  Simon  Magus,  the  first  to  reject  the  authority  of 
the  Church,  was  also  the  first  to  deny  that  God  was  the 
author  of  the  Scriptures.  For,  among  other  errors  he 
taught,  according  to  Epiphanius,  '  that  the  law  was  en- 
acted, not  by  God,  but  by  a  certain  sinister  intelligence; 
that  the  prophets  were  inspired  not  by  the  good  God, 

1  Mark  vii.  13.  '^  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  EccL.  Tom.  iii.  p.  21. 


266  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

but  by  various  intelligences ;  and  that  all  who  believed 
in  the  Old  Testament  incurred  death. 

2.  Saturninus  rejected  altogether  the  Old  Testament, 
which  he  declared  to  be  the  production  of  spirits  op- 
posed to  God,  or  of  that  particular  wicked  spirit  who, 
according  to  him,  ruled  the  material  universe. ' 

3.  Basilides  attributed  the  prophecies  to  angels,  and 
the  law  to  the  angelic  prince  who  governed  the  Jewish 
people.  He  himself  forged  some  prophecies,  which 
went  by  the  names  of  barcabas  and  barcoph.  ^ 

4.  Cerinthus  claimed  to  have  received  revelations 
written  by  an  apostle,  and  wonderful  things  shown  him 
by  an  angel,'  as  the  revelation  contained  in  the  genuine 
Scriptures  failed  to  supply  him  with  a  proof  for  his 
errors.  His  immediate  followers  mutilated  the  Gospel 
of  St.  Matthew,  repudiated  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  and 
rejected  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  * 

5.  Ebion  admitted  no  part  of  the  New  Testament 
except  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  but  mutilated  even 
that  by  omitting  two  chapters,  and  altered  the  others  in 
several  places. "  His  followers  carried  their  outrages 
on  Sacred  Scripture  to  greater  length  than  their  master." 

THE  CANON  AMONG  THE  SECTS  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY. 

I.  Elcesccus  admitted  only  a  part  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  a  part  of  the  New. '  His  disciples  rejected 
the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  and  other  books  and  parts  of 
books,  according  to  their  caprices.  They  had  in  their 
possession  a  book  which,  as  they  boasted,  fell  from  heav- 
en, and,  according  to  them,  would  obtain  for  those  who 
believed  it  a  pardon  of  sin  different  from  that  granted 
by  Christ.  ** 

^  Bergiei",  Diction,  de  Theolog. 

2  Ibid.  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.,  Tom.  iii.  p.  23  ;  Euseb.  Eccl  Hist.  B.  iv.  c.  p.  vii. 

'  Ibid.  B.  iii.,  s.  xxviii.  ''  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.  iii.,  24. 

^  Ligouri,  Hist,  of  Heres.,  Vol.  i.  p.  3. 

*>  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl  Tom.  iii.,  p  24,  Bergier- 

«  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  iii.,  p.  285. 


Among  the  Scctarists.  267 

2.  Cerdo  spurned  the  entire  Old  Testament ;  and  of 
the  New  he  admitted  only  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke,  and 
not  even  all  of  that. ' 

3.  Marcion  did  not  believe  that  the  Old  Testament 
was  inspired  by  God.  Of  the  four  Gospels  he  received 
only  that  of  St.  Luke,  rejecting,  however,  the  two  first 
chapters  thereof.  He  admitted  but  ten  epistles  of  St. 
Paul,  but  excluded  therefrom  whatever  could  not  be 
reconciled  with  his  own  errors.  ^ 

4.  Tatian  taught  that  the  law  of  Moses  was  not  insti- 
tuted by  God,  but  by  the  eon  who  created  the  world.  ' 
He  wrote  a  concordance  of  the  four  Gospels,  since 
known  as  the  Gospel  of  Tatian,  ^  and  ranked  among  the 
apocryphal  books.  In  it  he  suppressed  all  those  passages 
of  the  genuine  Gospels  which  prove  that  the  Son  of 
God  was  sprung  from  David  according  to  the  flesh.  ' 

5.  Montanus  boasted  that  he  himself  was  the  Paraclete, 
and  encouraged  two  lewd  women,  Priscilla  and  Maxima, 
to  sanction  his  wicked  doctrines  b}^  uttering  false  proph- 
ecies. ^ 

6.  Apelles  taught  that  the  oracular  utterances  of  the 
prophecies  proceeded  from  a  spirit  that  contradicted 
itself. ' 

THE  CANON  AMONG  THE  SECTS  OF  THE  THIRD  CENTURY. 

I.  Manes  professed  to  find  such  contradictions  between 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  that  he  maintained  they 
could  not  have  been  produced  by  the  same  God.  *  He 
therefore  attributed  the  prophets,  and  in  fact  the  whole 
of  the  former,  to  the  evil  principle,  and  claiming  to  be 
the  Paraclete  promised  by  Christ,  he  began  to  propagate 
his  errors. 

1   Beigier,  Nat.  Alex.,  Hist.  Eccl,  Tom.  iii.,  p.  285.  ^  Bergier. 

3  Liguori,  Hist,  of  Heresies.  Vol.  i.  p.  10. 

"  Fabricius,  Codex  Apocryph.  N.  T.,  Vol.  i.,  pp.  349i  378. 

5  Bergier.         «  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  iii.  p.  290.         '  Ibid.  p.  293. 

*  Bergier. 


268  Tlie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

2.  TertuUian  attributed  to  Barnabas  the  Epistle  of 
St,  Paul  to  the  Hebrews,'  and  contended  that  the  say- 
ings of  Priscilla  and  Maxima,  the  false  prophetesses  of 
Montanus,  should  supersede  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul 
with  regard  to  the  lawfulness  of  contracting  a  second 
marriage.  * 

From  the  sectarists  already  mentioned,  and  others 
who  did  not  directly  assail  written  revelation,  sprang 
up  innumerable  swarms  of  heretics  during  the  first 
three  centuries  —  Simonians,  Basilidians,  Marcionites, 
Manicheans,  Nazarites,  Valentinians,  Ebionites,  Cata- 
phrygians,  Alogians,  Gnostics,  etc. — all  repudiating  and 
abusing  the  word  of  God,  or  such  parts  thereof  as  mani- 
festly condemned  their  own  absurd  and  impious  theories, 
and  even  in  many  instances  fabricating  gospels,  epistles, 
prophecies,  revelations,  and  visions  in  support  of  the 
blasphemous  opinions  which  they  advocated  as  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  Christian  religion.  The  wildest 
chimeras  of  a  disordered  brain,  or  the  vilest  conceptions 
of  a  corrupt  heart,  were  mingled  with  the  parables  of 
Our  Lord,  the  utterances  of  the  prophets,  and  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Apostles.  It  was  held  that  some  of  the 
prophecies  were  spoken  by  angels,  and  others  b)'  Satan. 
One  Gospel  would  be  received  and  all  the  others  with 
St.  Paul  be  flung  aside,  or  a  Gospel  as  well  as  St.  Paul's 
writings  impiously  curtailed.  Yet  St.  Paul  had  his  de- 
fenders among  the  sectarists,  for  some  of  them  con- 
tended that  he  alone  knew  the  truth.  By  some  of  them 
the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and  the  Apocalypse  were  ruth- 
lessly repudiated.  To  others  the  writings  of  the  Proph- 
ets and  Apostles  were  the  only  apocryphal  Scriptures  ; 
of  course  it  was  the  duty  of  all  who  so  believed  to 
promulgate  such  doctrine  as  contradicted  Prophets  and 
Apostles,  and  this  was  faithfully  done.     In  fact,  the  Old 

'  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  iii.,  p.  308. 

^  Rohrbacher,  Hist.  Univer.  De  LEgl.,  Tom.  v.,  p.  332. 


Among  tJic  Scctarists.  269 

Testament  as  well  as  the  New  met  with  scant  reverence 
among  the  new  lights  of  the  time,  by  whom  it  was  con- 
sidered that  Ecclesiastes,  written  by  Solomon  when 
henpecked  by  strange  women,  could  not  have  been 
divinely  dictated.  The  Canticle  of  Canticles,  too,  was 
rejected  as  an  impious  song  by  some  early  as  well  as 
later  heretics.  To  all  this  horrible  profanation,  and 
blasphemous  perversion  of  God's  holy  word,  must  be 
added  attempts  at  counterfeiting  the  contents  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  of  the  New. 
Even  the  Psalms  of  David,  which  from  the  beginning 
were  used  in  the  public  service  of  the  Church,  were  in 
one  instance  superseded  by  hymns  chanted  in  honor,  not 
of  God,  but  of  the  impious  wretch  Paul  of  Samosata, 
who  dared  usurp  God's  own  place  in  God's  own  sanc- 
tuary. Not  a  few  of  those  primitive  heretics  were  con- 
verted Jews,  who  as  Christians  were  strongly  tinc- 
tured with  their  early  prejudices.  The  only  Gospel 
which  they  received  was  that  of  St.  Matthew;  and 
Apostate,  not  Apostle,  was  the  name  by  which  St.  Paul 
was  known  among  them.  St.  Irenaeus,  '  Eusebius,  ^ 
Philastrius, '  Epiphanius, '  Augustine,  °  and  other  early 
Christian  writers,  show  that  all  those  heretics  who 
endeavored  to  corrupt  the  faith  of  the  primitive  Church, 
when  they  did  not  actually  repudiate  the  divine  Script- 
ures; so  corrupted,  interpolated,  and  mutilated  them, 
that  they  hardly  retained  any  resemblance  to  the  sacred 
records  intended  by  God  for  the  instruction  of  mankind. 
But  this  treatment  of  the  Bible  has  been  a  characteristic 
of  Christian  sects  at  all  times,  modern  as  well  as  ancient. 

1  Advoc.  Haeres.,  L.  I.,  c.  i.,  xvii.,  xxii.,  xxvi.;  L,  III.,  c.  ii.,  xi.,  xii.,  xiii. 
(^Bibl.  Max.  V.  Pair.') 

-  Hist.  Eccl.,  B.  III.,  c.  28.  iv.,  c.  22,  29.  v.,  c.  13,  iS,  28.  vi.,  c.  12.  38.  vii., 
c.  25,  30. 

^  Haeres.  13,  40.  {Bibl.  Max.  V.  Pair.)  *  In  hacres.,  66. 

5  De  Moribus,  Eccl.  Caih.  Contra  Faustum,  etc..  passim. 


270  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

THE   CANON   AMONG    THE    SECTS    OF    THE    FOURTH    AND 
FIFTH  CENTURIES. 

Unfortunately  for  the  peace  and  prosperit}-  of  Chris- 
tendom, heresy,  with  the  close  of  the  third  century, 
ceased  not  its  attacks  on  the  faith,  though  it  changed 
its  tactics.  For,  instead  of  openly  denying  the  authority 
of  Scripture,  or  substituting  for  it  human  compositions, 
it  took  issue  with  those  conclusions  which  reason, 
guided  by  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  deduced  from 
the  principles  proclaimed  by  the  Scripture.  Donatists, 
Arians,  Pelagians,  Nestorians,  Eut3'chians,  JMonophy- 
sites,  etc.,  waged  incessant  war  on  dogma  and  morals 
throughout  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  and  some 
of  them  long  after.  Yet,  with  the  exception  of  St. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  at  first  admitted  but 
afterwards  rejected  '  by  the  Arians,  and  the  Book  of 
Wisdom,  repudiated  by  the  Pelagians  or  rather  Semipel- 
agians, ""  not  a  word  was  said  by  any  of  the  sects  against 
a  single  book  on  the  canon  of  either  Testament.  The 
Eunomians,  however,  in  the  fourth  century  contended, 
that  the  writings  of  their  founder  Eunomius  were  more 
authoritative  than  the  Gospels  ; '  and  when  hard  pressed 
by  texts  from  the  Prophets  or  Apostles,  the  AnoniEeans, 
who  like  the  Eunomians  were  nothing  but  an  i\rian  fac- 
tion, replied,  that  the  Prophets  and  Apostles  had  written 
as  mere  men. "  In  the  same  century  the  Priscillianists 
appealed  to  aprocryphal  books  in  support  of  their 
errors.  ^  In  the  fifth  century  Vigilantius,  in  order  to 
prove  one  of  his  heretical  opinions,  cited  as  canonical 
the  apocryphal  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras.  ° 

1  Theodoret,  Preface  to  Ep.  to  Hebr. 

2  Augustine,  Pradest.  SS.,  L.  i.,  c.  I4. 

3  Hierony.  Liber  adversus  Vigilantium. 
■•  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  iv.,  p.  54. 

'">  Lisruoii,  Hist.  ofHeres.,  Vol.  i.,  \\  90;  Nat.  Ale.\.  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  iV.,  p.  66. 
^  II  id  ,  T.  m    v..  p.  13. 


Among  t lie  Sect ari St s.  271 

THE  CANON  AMONG  THE  SECTS,  FROM  THE  SIXTH  TO  THE 
TENTH  CENTURY,  INCLUSIVE. 

Whether  the  anti-Christian  spirit  of  heresy  was  other- 
wise occupied,  or  had  found  that  further  efforts  in  those 
ages  to  upset  the  common  belief  in  the  supernatural 
origin  of  the  books  on  the  canon  must  end  in  failure,  it 
allowed  five  centuries  to  pass  without  renewing  the 
contest  in  that  direction.  But  most  of  the  old  errors  in 
disguise,  and  new  ones  under  attractive  forms,  all,  how- 
ever, when  unmasked,  hideous,  absurd,  arrogant,  aggres- 
sive, or  blasphemous,  continued  to  unsettle  the  minds  of 
men,  and  disturb  the  peace  of  Christendom. 

THE  CANON  AMONG  THE   SECTS   OF   THE    ELEVENTH   CEN- 
TURY. 

Not  until  the  eleventh  century  had  been  reached,  was 
there  any  direct  and  notable  assault  made  on  the  canon 
of  Scripture,  or  on  the  divine  authority  of  either  Testa- 
ment. In  the  early  part  of  that  century  the  Bogomilists, 
(Bulgarian  for  the  beloved  of  God),  who  were  followers 
of  an  errorist  named  Basil,  a  physician  under  a  monk's 
habit,  rejected  the  Books  of  Moses  and  the  rest  of  the 
Sacred  Scripture,  except  the  Psalter,  the  16  Prophets, 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  their  Epistles,  and  the  Apoca- 
lypse. '  In  the  same  centur}'  two  ecclesiastics  of  France, 
Stephen  and  Lisosius,  taught  that  all  the  Scriptures 
say  about  the  Trinity  and  the  creation  of  the  world  is 
mere  nonsense,  as  the  heavens  and  the  earth  are  from 
eternity,  and  never  had  a  beginning.  '^ 

THE   CANON   AMONG   THE   SECTS   OF   THE    TWELFTH   CEN- 
TURY. 

The  Albigenses  and  Cathari  generally  reprobated  the 
Old  Testament  as  the  work  of  the  devil ;  but  it  seems 
that  a  few  of  them  rejected  only  the  Law  and  the  his- 

'   Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Ecrl.  Tom.  vi.,  p.  479. 
2  Liguori,  Hist.-of  Heres.,  Vol.  i.,  p.  247. 


272  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

torical  books.  While  such  was  the  treatment  which  the 
Old  Testament  received  among  these  heretics,  they 
disdained  not  to  consult  apocryphal  books,  as  the  Vis- 
ion of  Isaias,  for  the  purpose  of  edification.  Instead, 
however,  of  rejecting  or  mutilating  the  New  Testament 
as  they  did  the  Old,  they  added  to  its  contents,  by 
inserting  therein  a  fifteenth  Epistle  of  St.  Paul,  and  a 
work  attributed  to  John  the  Apostle. '  The  same  cen- 
turv  also  witnessed  the  birth  of  the  Waldensian  sect, 
which,  like  the  two  preceding,  as  well  as  all  others 
before  and  since,  was  soon  divided  and  subdivided 
into  innumerable  factions,  so  that  it  is  difficult,  in- 
deed impossible,  to  trace  the  history  or  define  the 
creeds  of  these  mediaeval  sectarists.  All  that  can  be 
said  about  the  views,  rather  errors,  of  the  VValdenses 
regarding  the  Bible,  is  that,  though  they  made  a  very 
bad  use  of  it,  they  do  not  appear  to  have  rejected  an^^ 
of  its  books.  The  writer  whom  we  have  last  cited, 
though  a  Protestant,  frankly  admits,  while  referring  to 
the  "  Waldenses,"  "  that  the  common  opinion,  which 
gives  them  the  honor  of  having  made  a  careful  separa- 
tion between  the  apocryphal  (deutero)  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  the  (proto)  canonical  books,  is  false  and 
erroneous  in  every  point.  .  .  .  The  Waldenses  of  the 
middle  ages  were  acquainted,  and  could  be  acquainted, 
with  the  Vulgate  onl}-,  as  it  was  genei"ally  received  in 
their  time,"  "  when,  as  now  it  contained  the  deutero 
books.  We  are  further  informed  on  the  same  page  that 
"  of  the  few  supposed  Waldensian  manuscripts  of  the 
New  Testament  there  are  two  which  also  contain  Wis- 
dom and  Ecclcsiasticnsy  ^  It   was  through  the  Walden- 

1  'K&\x%%,  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  6".,  pp.  ,263,  264.  In  the  twelfth  century 
the  Publicani,  foreign  sectarians  supposed  to  be  connected  with  the  Albigen- 
ses  or  Waldensians,  appeared  in  England.  They  rejected  all  the  Scriptures 
except  the  Gospels  and  canonical  Epistles.      The  Truth  about  John  Wyckliffe, 

P-  195- 

-   Reuss.  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  S-  p.  264.  ^  Ibid. 


Among  the  Scctarists.  273 

sians  that  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century 
endeavored  to  connect  themselves  with  Christian  an- 
tiquity. But  the  attempt  was  a  failure,  for  Waldensian- 
ism  differed  as  much  from  common  Protestantism,  as 
(even  more  than)  Calvinism  differed  from  Church  of 
Englandism.  Besides,  had  it  been  shown  that  Walden- 
sianism  was  Protestantism,  how  could  the  latter  have 
cleared  at  a  single  bound  the  gaping  chasm  which 
separated  the  twelfth  century  from  the  Apostolic  age  ? 
Reuss,  when  he  made  the  preceding  admissions,  de- 
clared that  he  did  so  "  for  the  sake  of  historical  truth." 
All  other  Protestants,  as  well  as  he,  knew  that  the 
deutero  books  were  never  separated  from,  but  remained 
mixed  among  the  proto  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
until  the  time  of  Luther.  But  few  of  these  Protestants 
have  had  the  candor  to  denounce  the  denial  of  that  his- 
torical fact  as  ''  false  and  erroneous  in  every  point." 

THE  CANON  AMONG  THE  SECTS  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH 

CENTURY. 

In  this  centur}^  an  anonymous  defender  of  Abbot 
Joachim,  w^ho  had  broached  certain  errors,  which  he 
afterwards  recanted,  wrote  a  book  entitled  the  Eternal 
Gospel.  It  contained  several  heretical  propositions  : 
among  others,  that  the  doctrine  of  Joachim  was  supe- 
rior to  that  of  Christ,  and  therefore  to  that  of  the  Old 
Testament ;  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  not  to  edifica- 
tion ;  that,  as  the  Old  Testament  had  been,  so  should 
the  New  be,  cancelled  ;  and  that  after  the  year  1260  it 
should  no  longer  have  authority. ' 

In  the  same  century  the  Albigensians  were  engaged  in 
making  what  they  no  doubt  considered  improvements  in 
their  creed.  They  already  believed  that  there  were  two 
creators,  one  benevolent,  the" other  malevolent.  To  the 
latter  they,  as  we  have  seen,  ascribed  the  Old  Testament, 

'  Natalis  Alexander,  Hist.  Ecclesiastica  Vet.  et  Nov.  Test.,  Tom.vii..  p.  jS. 


274       The  Canon  of  the  O.  T.  atnong  the  Sectarists. 

which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  they  rejected,  except  such 
parts  as  they  found  in  the  New  Testament,  which  the}- 
attributed  to  the  former.  But  in  the  course  of  time  they 
devised  other  impious  tenets  regarding  God,  and  for 
reasons  which  they  professed  to  find  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment called  its  author  "  a  liar  and  a  homicide."  * 

1  Nat.  Alex.  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  vii.,  p.  66. 


CHAPTER  XX. 


The  Canon  among  the  Sects  from  the  Fourteenth 
TO  THE  Sixteenth  Century. 

We  have  now  reached  that  period  in  the  early  part  of 
which  Wyckliffe  lived,  flourished,  and  afflicted  England, 
and  not  only  England,  but  a  great  part  of  Europe,  with 
his  pernicious  errors.  For  there  is  no  doubt  that  he 
planted  the  seed  which  in  the  next  two  centuries  grew 
up  and  ripened  into  a  harvest  of  infidelity,  disorder,  and 
crime,  wherever  English  influence  extended,  or  the  En- 
glish language  was  understood,  or  English  writings 
were  translated  into  the  speech  of  any  other  country. 
There  were  at  the  time,  as  there  had  always  been  and 
always  will  be  advocates  of  heretical  opinions.  Wyck- 
liffe seems  to  have  been  the  only  man  of  his  age  who,  be- 
sides propounding  doctrines  so  monstrous  that  Protes- 
tants, to  their  credit,  would  now  be  ashamed  to  defend 
them,  is  said  to  have  repudiated  that  Canon  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  Christendom  both  East  and  West  re- 
vered as  divine.  But  that  he  really  did  so  may  never- 
theless be  doubted, 

Wyckliffe,  however,  although  on  linguistic  grounds 
wholly  incompetent  for  such  a  task,  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  have  written  an  English  translation  of  the 
Bible — the  first  book  of  the  kind,  according  to  many 
Protestants,  that  ever  appeared  in  that  language.  In 
this  supposed  translation  Dr.  Wright'  of  Trinity  college 

'  Kitto's  Cycl.^  Deuiero canonical,  I.,  p.  556. 


2/6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

says  that  Wyckliffe  "  substituted  another  prologue  for 
Jerome's,  wherein,  after  enumerating  the  '  twenty-five  * 
books  of  the  Hebrew  canon,  he  adds — '  Whatever  book 
is  in  the  Old  Testament,  besides  these  twenty-five,  shall 
be  set  among  the  Apocr3'pha,  that  is,  without  authority 
of  belief.  Now  the  words  here  attributed  to  Wyckliffe 
are  part  of  the  Preface  of  "  an  uncertain  tract,"  as  Hody  ' 
calls  it,  referring  to  the  books  contained  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  and  written  in  Old  Enghsh.  Hody  has  cop- 
ied the  preface,  and  from  it  it  appears  that  the  writer 
considered  that  the  Old  Testament  was  composed  sole- 
ly of  the  books  on  the  Hebrew  canon,  which  he  divides 
into  25  instead  of  22  or  24  ;  that  he  followed  Jerome's 
Prologus  Galeatus,  and  that,  as  Judith  was  taken  "  for  a 
book  of  Holy  Scripture  "  by  the  Council  of  Nice,  he 
was  willing  to  add  it  to  the  number,  and  by  separating 
Nehemiasfrom  Esdras,  to  make  of  the  whole  "  27  books 
of  belief."  Hody  adds  that  in  the  first  fly  leaf  of  the 
book  is  written  :  "  This  book  seems  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  John  Wyckliffe,"  and  that  the  handwriting  is 
that  of  Obadias  Walker,  a  Catholic.  Hody's  conclusion 
is  that  the  preface  in  question  was  written  by  some  one 
else  than  Wyckliffe.  So  far  there  is  nothing,  therefore, 
to  prove,  that  Wyckliffe's  crimes  against  religion  in- 
cluded any  attempt  at  mutilating  the  canon.  And  if  he 
ever  translated  the  Bible  or  any  part  of  it,  his  transla- 
tion was  but  the  translation  of  a  translation — that  made 
by  St.  Jerome.  For  he  knew  no  language  except  that^ 
of  his  native  land  and  Latin.  His  ignorance  of  Greek, 
as  well  as  of  Hebrew,  a  fact  admitted  by  his  eulogists,  ^ 
to  say  nothing  of  that  other  consideration,  that  in  his 
time  and  long  before  his  countrymen  had  the  Scriptures 
in  their  own  language,  ^  renders  it  extremely  doubtful 

1  De  Bibl.  7>a-^.,  p.  658.  2  Kitto  Cycl.,  Versions. 

3  Chamber's  Book  of  Days,  i.,  162;  Sir  Thomas  More,  Archbp.   Cranmer^ 
vide  Lingard.  Hist,  oj  Eng.,  iii.,  155,  note. 


Among  the  Scctarists.  277 

that  he  had  the  temerity— though  he  had  a  large  supply 
of  that  commodity— or  considered  it  necessary,  to  under- 
take a  translation  of  the  Bible. 

Regarding  the  supposed  translation  of  Wyckliffe,  there 
is  much  uncertainty,  as  is  evident  from  an  article  on 
versions'  by  Dr.  Davidson.  This  writer  assumes  as  a 
fact  that  such  a  work  was  really  written,  and  that  it 
^'was  finished  about  the  year  1380,"  but  adds  that 
"  according  to  Baber,  another  version  was  made  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  posterior  to  Wyckliffe's,  with  which 
it  is  frequently  confounded,"  and  "it  may  be  doubted, 
whether  Wyckliffe's  version  has  yet  been  pubhshed 
even  as  regards  the  New  Testament,  "  while  "  the  Old 
Testament  has  not  yet  been  published,  but  it  is  now  in 
course  of  publication."  Eight  years  after  this  state- 
ment was  made,  the  readers  of  the  Dublin  Review 
were  informed  that  Wyckliffe's  "  version  of  the  Bible 
had  recently  been  published." 

Yet,  for  the  reasons  already  stated,  and  others  to  be 
submitted,  it  must  seem  extremely  doubtful  whether 
the  heresiarch  was  the  author  of  the  version  just  men- 
tioned, or  whether  he  ever  wrote  any  version  at  all. 
Probably  the  most  he  did  do  in  the  matter  was  to  avail 
himself  of  the  English  versions  then  in  existence,  ^nd 
thus  prepare  one  or  more  editions  adapted  to  his  own 
principles,  have  them  copied,  and  distributed  by  those 
firebrands  he  had  in  his  service,  whom  he  called  poor 
priests,  and  whom,  after  being  trained  in  his  own  school, 
he  sent  in  all  directions  to  propagate  his  heretical  doc- 
trines, and  excite  a  spirit  of  sedition  among  the  people. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  Wyckliffe  and  his  apostles,  in 
their  efforts  to  accomplish  a  religious  and  political  rev- 
olution among  their  countrymen,  met  with  remarkable 
success.  This  is  too  well  attested  by  the  violent  and 
widespread  opposition  to  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical 

1  Kitto's  Cyclop.  ■'  Vol.  XXXV,  p.  420,  year  1853. 


278  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

authority,  which  convulsed  English  society,  even  before 
the  awful  death  which  put  an  end  to  the  turbulent  ca- 
reer of  the  wretched  apostate. 

The  English  versions  made  before  Wyckliffe's  time 
being  not  now  extant,  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether 
the  translation  published  as  his  is  an  original  work,  or 
one  manufactured  from  materials  which  he  found  at 
hand  in  the  English  translations  which  had  been  already 
written.  The  latter  supposition  is  probably  the  correct 
one,  if  the  conjecture  that  Wyckliffe  had  anything  what- 
ever, to  do  in  preparing  a  new  English  version  of  the 
Bible  be  not  wholly  preposterous.  Even  were  it  in  our 
power  to  compare  the  translations  of  older  writers  with 
that  ascribed  to  Wyckliffe,  we  should  look  in  vain  for 
evidences  to  prove  that  the  latter  was  actually  executed 
by  him.  In  fact,  Dr.  Davidson  hesitates  to  say  that 
Wyckliffe  was  the  author  of  the  version  commonly  at- 
tributed to  him.  "  There  are  (says  this  writer)  indica- 
tions of  his  (Wyckliffe's)  having  had  assistance  in  the 
work  perhaps  from  various  individuals."  '  And  the 
Dr.  concludes  that  "The  subject,  however,  is  involved 
in  considerable  doubt ;  and  he  that  trusts  to  the  com- 
mon account  given  of  this  earl}-  reformer  as  a  translator 
of  the  Bible  maj'  probably  be  misled  in  his  opinions.  "  " 
Yet  Lingard,  adopting  "  the  common  opinion, "  says 
"  Wycliffe  made  a  new  translation."  '  But  in  this  mat- 
ter the  celebrated  historian  seems  for  once  to  have 
dismissed  his  witnesses  without  the  usual  cross-exam- 
ination. For  Protestant  writers,  who  have  carefully 
weighed  all  the  evidence  in  the  case,  and  must  as  Prot- 
estants have  been  disposed  to  grant  Wyckliffe  all  that 
is  claimed  for  him  by  "  common  opinion,"  express  them- 
selves on  the  subject,  as  we  have  just  seen,  with  consid- 
erable hesitation.  Besides,  Chamber's  Book  of  Days,  a 
work  written  under  Protestant  influence,  and  much  lat- 

'  Kitto's  Cyclop..    Fersion.        *  Ibid         //isl.  of  England^  Vol.  iii.,  p.  155. 


Among  the  Scctarists.  279 

er  than  Lingard'd  History,  refers  to  Wyckliffe  as  a 
translator  with  the  same  reserve  which  marks  the  state- 
ment of  Davidson.  Referring  to  a  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  English,  which  was  made  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  the  Book  of  Days  says,  it  "  is 
known  as  Wyckliffe's  Bible,  as  being  the  work  of  that 
reformer  himself,  or,  at  least,  of  his  followers.  There 
are  two  texts  of  the  English  version,  differing  consider- 
ably from  each  other,  which  are  printed  side  by  side  in 
the  edition  in  3  vols,  quarto  edited  by  Forshall  and 
Madden."  '  Both  texts  could  not  have  proceeded  from 
Wyckliffe.  And  where  is  the  evidence  that  he  is  the 
author  of  either  ? 

Although  Hallam,  ^  writing  about  1840,  refers,  like 
some  others,  to  "  The  translation  of  Wicliffe  "  without 
any  apparent  doubt  that  such  a  work  was  or  had  been 
actually  in  existence,  later  writers  are  by  no  means  so 
positive  in  their  remarks  on  the  subject.  Thus  Mr. 
George  F.  Marsh,  an  American,  who  has  devoted  much 
attention  to  the  question  in  his  Lectures  on  the  English 
Language,  pubhshed  in  1863,  although  an  ardent  Protes- 
tant, as  shown  by  his  frequent  use  of  Popish  and  Romish, 
expresses  himself  regarding  the  supposed  translation  of 
Wyckliffe  in  a  way  to  confirm,  rather  than  dissipate,  the 
suspicions  of  a  reader  disposed  to  doubt  that  a  Wyck- 
iiffian  version  of  the  Bible  into  English  ever  existed. 
For,  after  rejecting'  the  supposition  of  some  "  that  the 
name  of  Wycliffe  was  but  a  myth,  the  impersonation 
of  a  school  of  reformers,  "  Mr.  Marsh  adds  :  "  Still,  the 
extreme  uncertainty  of  the  evidence  which  identifies  any 
existing  manuscript  as  an  actual  production  of  the 
translator  Wycliffe,  and  the  great  stylistic  differences 
between  the  xvorks  usually  ascribed  to  him,  require  us  to 
use  great  caution  in  speaking  of  the  characteristics  of 

•  Vol  i.,  p.  162. 

*  Literature  of  Europe,  Part  I.,  ch.  iii.,  ^  53. 


28o  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament 

his  diction."  '  Elsewhere  Mr.  Marsh  calls  attention 
to  several  remarkable  facts  which  he  discovered  while 
examining  Wyckliffe's  supposed  version  and  the  genu- 
ine writings  of  that  reformer.  We  thus  learn  that 
"  The  language  of  Wycliffe's  Testament  differs  nearly  as 
much  from  the  religious  prose  writings  of  his  contem- 
porary and  follower,  Chaucer,  as  does  that  of  our  own 
Bible  from  the  best  models  of  literary  composition  in 
the  present  day ;  and  it  is  a  still  more  remarkable  and 
important  fact,  that  the  style  which  Wyckliffe  himself 
employs  in  his  controversial  and  other  original  works 
is  a  very  different  one  from  that  in  which  he  clothed  his 
translation."^  The  natural  conclusion  to  be  drawn 
from  this  is,  that  the  translation  attributed  to  Wyckliffe 
is  not  his,  but  that  of  an  older  writer,  and  that  Sir 
Thomas  More  was  right  when  he  said,  there  were  Eng- 
lish translations  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  long  before 
the  time  of  Wyckliffe.  This  conclusion,  though  per- 
ceived by  Mr.  Marsh,  is  not  admitted  by  him.  But  his 
reasons  for  rejecting  it  will  bring  conviction  to  few 
unprejudiced  minds.  Another  very  suggestive  fact  is, 
as  remarked  by  Mr.  Marsh,  that  "  The  translations  of 
the  texts  cited  by  Wychffe  himself,  in  the  controver- 
sial works  most  confidently  ascribed  to  him,  by  no 
means  agree  literally  with  the  version  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, and  of  a  part  of  the  Old,  which  he  is  beheved  to 
have  executed."  ^  Does  it  not  therefore  seem  to  follow 
that  the  author  of  these  "  controversial  works  "  could 
not  have  written  the  translation  in  question?  The 
learned  lecturer  does  his  best  to  meet  thisdifificulty,  but 
with  very  moderate  success.  Again  our  respected  fel- 
low citizen  tells  us  that  "  There  is  a  good  deal  of  diffi- 
culty in  identifying  any  extant  manuscript  as  certainly 
the  work  of  Wycliffe;  but  there  are  several  which  are 

1  First  Series,  p.  167,  note.  -  Ibid.,  pp.  625,  626. 

3  Second  Series,  ibid.,  p.  340,  note. 


Among  tJie  Scctarists.  281 

ascribed  to  him  with  ever}-  appearance  of  probability.' 
Are  not,  therefore,  Wyckhffe's  admirers  asking  too  much 
when  they  would  have  people  receive  as  a  translation 
of  that  ecclesiastical  demagogue  one  of  the  two  texts 
which  Messrs.  Forshall  and  Madden  have  condescended 
to  prepare  for  the  public.  Referring  to  this  edition,  Mr. 
Marsh  observes  that  "  the  older  text,  from  Genesis  to 
BarucJi  iii.  20,  is  believed  to  be  the  work  of  Hereford, " 
an  English  ecclesiastic ;  the  remainder  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament and  Apocrypha  is  supposed,  and  the  whole  of 
the  New  Testament  almost  certainly  known  to  have 
been  translated  by  Wycliffe,  while  the  later  text  of  the 
entire  Bible  is  ascribed  to  Purvey."  '  Whether  Wyck- 
liffe  translated  the  Bible,  or  any  part  of  it,  is  therefore  a 
question  which,  in  view  of  all  the  evidence,  seems  to 
demand  a  negative  answer.  But  it  does  not  appear  that 
he,  like  his  modern  apologists,  must  plead  guilty  of  mu- 
tilating the  canon  of  Scripture.  Even  Hereford  and 
Purvey,  his  misguided  associates,  recoiled  from  such  a 
sacrilegious  act.  For  the  version  attributed  to  them 
or  at  least  to  Hereford  contains,  "all  the  Apocry- 
phal Books,  so  called,  excepting  the  fourth  book 
of  Esdras." '  That  John  de  Wyckliffe,  however, 
impelled  by  disappointed  ambition,  attempted  to 
overturn  altar  and  throne  by  a  sacrilegious  use 
of  the  Bible,  and  that  his  efforts  in  that  di- 
rection were,  though  long  after  his  death,  for  a 
time  completely  successful,  few  who  have  studied 
the    history   of    England    will   venture   to   deny. 

When  the  preceding  sketch  of  Wyckliffe  was  almost 
completed,  it  was  learned  that  a  work  just  referred  to, 

'  Second  Series,  p.  366. 

2  At  first  a  Wyckliffite,  but  afterwards  reconciled  to  the  Church.     The  Truth 
■about  John   Wyclif,  by  J.  Stevenson,   S.J.,  p.   121. — 

3  Second  Series,  p.  344. — Purvey  was  another  Wycklifiite. 
<  The  Truth  about  John  Wyclif,  106. 


282  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

The  "Truth  about  John  Wyclif,"  London,  1885,  had 
appeared.  The  name  of  the  learned  writer  has  been  al- 
ready mentioned.  Referring  to  Wyckliffe's  connection 
with  the  version  commonly  ascribed  to  him,  this  writ- 
er says :  "  If  any  portion  of  the  undertaking  belongs  to 
him,  it  is  the  version  of  the  New  Testament,  and  even 
on  this  point  his  Oxford  editors,  Forshall  and  Madden, 
speak  with  considerable  reserve.  .  .  Possibly,  then,  he 
took  no  active  part  in  the  translation  of  the  entire  New 
Testament;  certainly  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
version  of  the  Old  Testament.  .  .  Perhaps  the  version  of 
the  New  Testament  may  be  his,  perhaps  not;  certainl)- 
no  more."  '  Such  is  the  conclusion  reached  by  a  con- 
scientious critic,  after  a  careful  study  of  the  life  and  la- 
bors of  W3xkliffe  as  portrayed  by  Wyckliffe's  contem- 
poraries, and  those  now  engaged  in  editing  his  works. 
Thus  modern  research  leads  to  the  exposure,  one  by 
one,  of  the  many  fictions  which  constitute  the  substra- 
tum on  which  the  Protestant  system  rests. 

THE   CANON  AMONG  THE   SECTS  OF  THE   FIFTEENTH  CEN- 
TURY. 

This  century  also  verified  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  when 
he  declared  that  "  there  must  be  also  heresies.'"'  For  it 
contributed  its  full  quota  to  the  black  list  of  turbulent 
and  obstinate  innovators,  who  have  in  every  age  con- 
spired against  divine  truth.  In  that  quota,  however, 
there  appears  but  one  who,  besides  his  other  assaults 
on  the  common  belief  of  Christendom,  boldly  attacked 
the  sacred  document  by  which,  as  interpreted  by  the 
Church,  that  belief  had  all  along  been  maintained.  That 
one  was  Herman  Ruissvich,  a  Batavian  by  birth.  His 
career  commenced  in  the  fifteenth  and  extended  into  the 
sixteenth  century.  He  was  condemned  for  his  errors  in 
1499,  ^"d  died  soon  after,  having  obstinately  contended 

'    77ie  Tnith  about  John  Wyclif,  pp.  lo6,  107.  -  I.  Cor.  xi.  19. 


Among  tJic  Scctarists.  285 

that  the  faith  of  Christians  was  a  fable,  the  Bible  an  ab- 
surd fiction,  and  the  Gospel  a  vain  delusion.  ^ 

THE   CANON  AMONG  THE  SECTS   OF  THE  SIXTEENTH   CEN- 
TURY. 

Herman  was  succeeded  by  a  horde  of  heretics,  whose 
principles  were  less  repulsive  and  blasphemous,  and 
thus  better  calculated  to  corrupt  the  faith  and  morals 
of  Christendom,  by  imposing  on  the  credulity  and  flat- 
tering the  passions  of  mankind.  In  a  work  like  the 
present,  mention  can  be  made  only  of  such  in  that  horde, 
as  made  themselves  notorious  by  rejecting  that  canon 
which  they  as  well  as  their  forefathers  had  been  taught 
to  revere,  as  the  only  true  catalogue  of  inspired  books. 
Foremost  in  the  horde  is  Martin  Luther,  whose  true  pat- 
ronymic was  Luder,  which  Martin,  on  account  of  its  vul- 
gar meaning,  exchanged  for  a  more  euphonious  name, 
by  which  he  has  since  been  known.  This  remarkable 
man  was  born  of  humble  but  pious  Catholic  parents  at 
Eisleben,  Upper  Saxony,  in  the  year  1483.  He  became 
an  Augustinian  monk  in  1505,  was  ordained  priest  in 
1507,  but  afterwards  divested  himself  of  his  religious 
habit  and  violated  his  monastic  vows.  Among  the  er- 
rors he  broached  were  the  opinions,  which  he  propound- 
ed in  reference  to  the  Sacred  Scriptures.  In  1526, 
although  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  and  Greek  was  far 
from  extensive,^  he  commenced  a  German  translation  of 
the  Bible  from  the  languages  in  which  it  was  originally 
written,  a  work  which  he  completed  in  1534,  placing  the 
deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  by  themselves,  be- 
tween it  and  the  New,  under  the  title  of  "  Apocrypha; 
that  is,  Books  which  are  not  to  be  considered  as  equal 
to  Holy  Scripture,  and  yet  are  useful  and  good  to  read."  * 

1  Nat.  Alex.,  Hist.  Ecclesiast.  Tom.  viii.,  p.  lOO. 

2  Hallam,  Literature  of  Europe,  Part  I.,  c.  vi.,  §  37. 
^  Kitto's  CycL,  Deutero  canonical. 


284  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

Moreover,  Luther  throughout  his  prefaces,  one  of  which, 
in  imitation  of  St.  Jerome,  he  prefixed  to  each  of  the  books 
in  his  German  translation,  as  well  as  throughout  his  other 
Avritings,  has  expressed  himself  in  such  a  way  as  to  con- 
vince his  readers  that  there  were  several  proto  books 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  deutero  in  the  New,  whose 
canonicity  he  either  openly  denied  or  doubted.  Thus, 
although  he  retained  Esther  on  the  roll  of  sacred  books, 
he  is  accused  of  having  held  that  it  was  not  entitled  to 
a  place  therein  ;  and  the  charge  appears  to  be  well 
founded  ;  for  in  his  Table  Talk  he  declared  to  his  confi- 
dential friends  in  his  own  arbitrary  style  :  "  The  Book 
of  Esther  I  toss  into  the  Elbe."  "  I  am  so  an  enem)-  to 
the  Book  of  Esther,  that  I  would  it  did  not  exist ;  for  it 
Judaizes  too  much,  and  hath  in  it  a  great  deal  of  heathen- 
ish naughtiness."  '  Again  "  Job  (which  he  preserved 
in  his  German  Old  Testament)  may  have  thought  what 
is  written  in  his  book,  but  he  did  not  pronounce  these 
discourses.  A  man  does  not  speak  thus  when  he  is 
tried."  '  What  Luther  thought  of  the  writings  of  Solo- 
mon may  be  inferred  from  the  following.  "  The  Prov- 
erbs of  Solomon  are  (he  says)  a  book  of  good  works  ; 
they  are  collected  by  others,  who  wrote  them  when  the 
king,  at  table  or  elsewhere,  had  just  uttered  his  maxims. 
There  are  added  the  teachings  of  wise  doctors."  ^  Speak- 
ing of'Ecclesiastes,  "  This  book  (he  remarks)  ought  to 
be  more  complete  ;  it  wants  many  things  ;  it  has  neither 
boots  nor  spurs,  and  rides  in  simple  sandals,  as  I  used  to 
do  when  I  was  still  in  the  convent.  Solomon  is  not  its 
author,  etc."  *  "  Ecclesiastes  and  Canticles  (he  continues) 
are,  besides,  books  not  of  one  piece  ;  there  is  no  order  in 
these  books ;  all  is  confused  in  them,  which  fact  is  ex- 
plained by  their  origin.  For,  Canticles,  too,  were  com- 
posed by  others  from  the  sayings  of  Solomon."  '     In  his 

»  Kitto's  Cycl.,  Esther.         '  Reuss,  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  S.,  p.  33 1. 
^  Ibid.  p.  330.  ••  Ibid.         s  Ibid. 


A  mong  the  Sectarists.  285 

work  De  Scrv.  Arbit.  addressed  to  Erasmus,  speaking  oi 
the  Hebrew  canon,  "■  which  canon  (he  remarks)  you  do 
not  a  little  reproach,  when  you  compare  the  Proverbs 
and  the  Love-song,  as  you  sneeringly  call  it,  with  the  two 
Books  of  Esdras,  and  Judith,  Susannah,  the  Dragon,  and 
the  Book  of  Esther ;  but  though  they  have  this  last  in 
their  canon,  it  is  in  my  judgment  (he  says)  more  worthy 
than  all  of  being  excluded  from  the  canon."  '  With  the 
most  liberal  construction  that  can  be  put  on  his  language, 
it  is  impossible  to  reach  any  other  conclusion  than  that 
Luther  did  not  believe  that  the  books  of  Solomon  were 
dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  Esther  was  canon- 
ical. His  apologists  would  have  us  believe  that,  when 
he  said,  "  Esther  was  more  worthy  than  all  of  being  ex- 
cluded from  the  canon,"  he  meant  Esther  of  the  Septua- 
gint.  But  in  vain  ;  for  Luther,  when  he  so  \vrote,  was 
referring  to  the  Hebrew,  not  the  Septuagint  Old  Testa- 
ment. Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  Luther's 
view  of  the  Old  Testament  was  that,  which  any  class  of 
Christians  ever  entertained.  Thus  he  says :  "  The 
Books  of  Kings  are  a  hundred  thousand  steps  in  advance 
of  those  of  Chronicles,  and  they  also  deserve  more  credit. 
Still,  they  are  only  the  calendar  of  the  Jews  containing 
the  list  of  their  kings  and  their  kind  of  government."  ^ 
Ordinary  readers  supposed  that  these  books  also  con- 
tainedan  account  of  God's  dealings  with  his  chosen  peo- 
ple. Again,  "■  Moses  and  the  prophets  preached,  but  w^e 
do  not  there  hear  God  himself.  .  .  .  When  God  himself 
speaks  to  men,  they  hear  nothing  but  grace  and  merc3^"  ^ 
Most  people,  Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics,  have 
always  believed  that,  whether  it  was  Moses  or  ih.Q  proph- 
ets who  preached,  it  was  God  Himself  who  did  ihtpreaeh- 
ing,  and  then  it  was  graee  and  vierey  that  were  heard. 
Is  there  not  good  reason  for  suspecting,  that  Luther's 

1  Kitto's  Cycl..  Esther. 

2  Reuss,  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  S.,  p.  331.  ^  Ibid. 


286  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  determined  more  by 
an  arbitrary  and  capricious  will,  than  by  a  critical  and 
deliberate  judgment? 

Luther's  canon  of  the  New  Testament  seems  to  have 
been  regulated  on  the  same  principle,  indeed  more  so ; 
for,  having,  while  promulgating  his  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament,  substituted  abject  submission  to  rabbinical 
authority  for  the  obedience  which  by  his  vows  he  owed 
to  the  Church,  it  is  surprising  that,  at  the  dictation  of 
his  Jewish  teachers,  he  did  not  utterly  repudiate  the 
Christian  Scriptures.  There  was  one  book,  however,  in 
these  Scriptui-es  for  which  he  seems  to  have  entertained 
a  Satanic  hatred,  the  Epistle  of  St.  James.  "  This  epistle 
(says  he)  in  comparison  with  the  writings  of  John, 
Paul,  and  Peter,  is  a  right  strawy  epistle,  being  destitute 
of  an  evangelic  character."  '  Referring  to  this  criti- 
cism, a  learned  Protestant  writer  ^  is  constrained  to  sav 
that  Luther  "  was  influenced  not  so  much  bv  historico- 
critical,  as  by  dogmatic  views."  Such  "views"  were 
too  often  at  the  bottom  of  Luther's  conclusions.  Ever 
since  he  had  broken  his  solemn  vows  to  God,  he  seems 
to  have  determined  on  extirpating  throughout  Chris- 
tendom what  all  but  himself  considered  good  works. 
And  as  they  constituted  a  large  part  of  the  ingredients 
in  the  pill  compounded  by  St.  James,  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  the  genial  ex-monk,  who  had  taken  unto 
himself  a  wife,  and  had  granted  ^  two  to  a  princely 
patron,  would  taste,  much  less  gulp  down,  such  nauseous 
medicine  without  a  strong  protest.  Hence,  in  his  pref- 
ace to  James  and  John,  he  querulously  remarks,  that 
"  this  James  does  nothing  but  urge  on  to  the  law  and  its 
works,  and  writes  so  confusedly  and  inconsistently,  that 

'  Preface  to  the  New  Testament. 

"  Dr.  Wright  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  on  Epistle  of  St.  James,  in  Kitto's 
■Cycl. 

3  Bossuet's  Variations.  B.  VI. 


Among  the  Scctarists.  287 

it  appears  to  me  like  as  if  some  good  pious  man  got 
hold  of  a  number  of  sayings  from  the  Apostles'  follow- 
ers, and  then  flung  them  on  paper;  or  it  is  probably 
written  by  some  one  after  the  Apostles'  preaching."  ' 
Luther  therefore  could  not  have  held  that  the  Epistle  of 
St.  James  was  divine. 

Reuss'  admits  that  Luther  "  thought  himself  bound  " 
by  the  views  which  he  advocated  "  to  dispute  the  can- 
onical dignity  ....  of  the  Epistles  of  James  and  Jude, 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  the  Apocalypse.  He 
did  not,  indeed,  suppress  them  in  his  editions,  but  from 
the  first  he  relegated  them  to  the  end  of  the  volume  ; 
and  in  the  tables  of  the  contents  placed  at  the  top,  he 
separated  their  titles  from  those  of  the  books  reputed 
to  be  canonical,  all  the  more  significant,  that  the  twenty- 
three  first  alone  were  numbered,  while  the  four  last 
were  not."  And  Luther's  futile  reasons  for  this  novel 
and  un-Christian  arrangement  were,  "  the  Epistle  of 
James  derives  justification  from  works;  in  interpreting 
the  Old  Testament  it  contradicts  Paul;  it  does  not 
speak  of  Christ,  His  death,  His  resurrection.  His  Spirit ; 
it  speaks  of  a  law  of  liberty,  while  we  know  from  Paul 
that  with  the  law  are  associated  bondage,  sin,  anger, 
death.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  in  three  places  (ch. 
vi.,  X.,  xii.)  refuses  repentance  to  sinners  after  baptism 
contrary  to  all  the  gospels  and  to  all  Paul's  epistles. 
The  Epistle  of  Jude,  also,  when  judged  by  what  is 
fundamental  in  the  Christian  faith,  is  useless.  In  the 
Apocalypse  there  are  only  images  and  visions  .... 
threats  and  promises  ....  while  no  one  knows  what  he 
means,  and  after  all,  Christ  is  neither  taught  nor  ac^ 
knowledged.  It  may  be  compared  to  the  Fourth  Book 
of  Esdras;  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not 
perceptible  in  it." ' 

>  Kitto's  CycL.  James.  *  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  S.,  p.  325. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  326,  327. 


288  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

After  reading  Luther's  argument  against  the  Apoca- 
lypse, Dr.  Davidson  remarked  :  "  This  reasoning  is  mani- 
festly so  inconsequential,  and  the  style  of  criticism  so 
bold,  as  to  render  animadversion  unnecessary."  '  By 
several  Protestant  critics,  both  in  Germany  and  England, 
it  is  supposed  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  not 
written  by  St.  Paul  but  by  Apollo,  a  conjecture  for 
which  they  are  indebted  to  Luther.  ^  Luther's  transla- 
tion determined  the  form  and  tone  of  the  Bible  in  almost 
all  Protestant  countries,  and  long  retained  his  prefaces 
at  the  head  of  each  book.  There  are  some  editions  in 
which  these  four  books,  Epistle  of  James,  Epistle  of  Jude, 
Hebrews,  and  the  Apocalypse,  to  all  of  which  Luther  ob- 
jected, are  set  apart  by  themselves  and  stigmatized  Apo- 
crypJia.  In  fact,  what  Protestants  call  the  Antilcgonicna 
(deutero  of  the  New  Testament),  that  is,  the  books  just 
mentioned,  as  well  as  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  and 
the  Second  and  Third  of  John,  are  headed  by  the 
words  "  Apocrypha  of  the  New  Testament"  '^  in  the 
Lunenberg  edition  of  Luther's  Bible,  published  in  1618, 
that  is,  sixty-eight  years  after  Luther's  death.  * 

Luther's  view  of  the  deutero  books  in  the  Old  as  well 
as  the  New  Testament  was  adopted  b}'  Martin  Chemnitz,'* 
and  Johann  Brentz, "  both  leading  German  reformers, 
who,  though  somewhat  younger  than  Luther,  belonged 
to  the  same  century  ;  and  by  many  other  less  brilliant 
lights,  whose  belief  must  have  been  considerably  influ- 
enced by  the  critical  remarks  contained  in  Luther's 
prefaces.  Even  the  centuriators  of  Magdeburg  were 
favorably  impressed  by  Luther's  views.  They,  how- 
ever, with  other  Lutherans,  strenuously  defended  the 
canonicity    of   the  Apocalypse,   that  book    being   then 

1  Kitto's  Cycl.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  619.  *  Ibid.,  I.,  p.  826. 

*  Reuss,  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  S.  S.,  p.  338. 

4  Kitto's  Cyct.,  II.,  p.  508. 

■''  Examen,  Sessio  VI.,  Cone.   Trid.  •>  Conf.  Wittenberg. 


Among  the  Sect arists.  289 

considered  by  all  good  Protestants  the  most  useful  in 
the  entire  Bible,  and  absolutely  indispensable  to  the 
success  of  their  cause;  as  no  one  could  read  it,  so  they 
believed,  without  being  convinced  that  Rome  was  the 
Apocalyptic  Babylon,  and  the  Pope  that  veritable  anti- 
Christ  revealed  to  St.  John. 

John  Calvin,  a  contemporary  of  Luther,  though  with 
him  equally  opposed  to  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  was  more  indulgent  to  those  of  the  New,  yet 
he  seemed  to  have  been  somewhat  doubtful  about  the 
Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  for  he  observes  with  regard  to 
it  that  "  notwithstanding  some  affinity  in  style,  the  dis- 
crepancies between  it  and  the  former  (I.  Peter)  are  such 
as  to  indicate  that  they  had  not  the  same  author."  ' 
Since  Calvin's  time  it  has  been  rejected  by  several 
learned  Protestants,  as  Grotius,  Scaliger,  Salmasius, 
Semler,  etc.  °  Bolten,  Grotius,  Michaelis,  and  others, 
following  in  the  steps  of  Luther,  have  also  called  in 
question  the  apostohc  origin,  if  not  the  canonicity  of 
the  Epistle  of  Jude. '  In  fact,  there  is  not  any  of  the 
deutero  books  belonging  to  the  New  Testamement 
whose  divine  origin  has  not  been  denied  by  Protestant 
writers,  especially  in  Germany  ;  while  the  Bible  as  a 
whole  has  been  assailed  by  non-Catholic  scholars  wher- 
ever Protestantism  has  a  following,  in  a  spirit  of  criti- 
cism decidedly  more  worthy  of  avowed  infidels  than 
professing  Christians.  While,  thus,  on  the  one  hand, 
Protestant  biblicists  have  been  endeavoring  to  reduce 
not  a  few  of  the  sacred  books  to  the  level  of  profane 
writings,  others  of  the  same  class  have  been  exerting 
their  talents  to  prove  that  certain  compositions,  con- 
fessed at  all  times  to  be  purely  human,  were  of  equal 
authority  with  anything  the  Apostles  had  wi"itten. 
The  apostolical  canons  and  constitutions,  for  example, 

=   Comment,  in  Ep.  Cath.  *  Kitto's  CycL,  Vol.  II.,  p.  508. 

3  IbicL,  p.  172. 


290  The  Canon  of  the  O.  T.  among  the  Seetarists. 

with  the  various  liturgies  ascribed  to  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Mark,  and  published  by  Fabricius  in  his  Codex  Apocry- 
phus  Nov.  Testanienti,  are  considered  by  the  learned . 
William  Whiston, '  and  the  equally  learned  John  Ernest 
Grabe/  the  former  an  Anglican  minister,  the  latter 
originally  a  Lutheran,  as  authoritative  as  any  of  the 
books  attributed  to  the  apostles. 

When  the  frenzied  opposition  exhibited  b}-  Protes- 
tants to  all  ecclesiastical  authorit}-,  on  their  separation 
from  the  Catholic  Church,  had  somewhat  subsided,  they 
began  to  perceive  that  Luther  and  his  associates  had 
gone  too  far  in  their  attempts  at  remodelling  that  can- 
on of  Scripture  which  their  fathers  had  followed  ever 
since  they  became  Christians.  The  deutero  books  of 
the  New  Testament  were,  therefore,  everywhere  gradu- 
ally restored  to  their  proper  position.  But  those  of  the 
Old,  though  commonly  admitted  to  be  of  some  practical 
use,  even  if  merel}-  human,  were  excluded  from  the 
canon,  but  generally  inserted  by  themselves  between 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  under  the  title  of  Hagio- 
grapha,  or  more  frequentlv  Apocrypha.  Even  this  scant 
honor  was  too  often  grudged  them.  At  the  present 
time,  though  the  annual  production  of  English  Protes- 
tant Bibles  is  simpl}-  immense,  most  Protestants  whose 
vernacular  is  English  live  and  die  without  ever  having 
seen  a  copy  containing  these  books.  It  was  also  soon 
perceived  by  those  who  adopted  the  principles  of 
Luther  that  the  versions  of  Scripture  which  their  teach- 
ers had  prepared  for  their  use,  whether  through  the 
ignorance  or  malice  of  the  translators,  misrepresented 
the  original  in  many  important  particulars.  In  fact, 
this  discovery  was  made  while  many  of  the  translators 
were  still  alive,  and  not  onl}-  led  to  bitter  recriminations 
among  those  gentlemen  themselves,  but  called  forth 
vigorous  protests  from  Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics. 

'  Primitive  Christianity.  -  Spicilegium. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  among  the  Prot- 
estants OF  THE   Sixteenth   Century.— Their 
Versions  of  the  Bible. 

Regarding  the  estimate  made  by  INIartin  Luther  of 
several  books  of  the  Scripture,  proto  as  well  as  deutero, 
the  examination  has  been  purposely  restricted  through- 
out to  the  voluntary  statements  submitted  by  Protes- 
tant witnesses.  And  it  is  now  for  each  reader  to 
constitute  himself  a  court  and  say,  whether  and  to  what 
extent  the  said  Luther  has  offended  against  the  sacred 
majesty  of  God's  own  word.  The  next  point  to  be  dis- 
cussed is  the  merits  of  the  version  prepared  by  Luther. 
This  to  be  succeeded  by  a  few  remarks  on  some  of  the 
more  pretentious  versions,  which  followed  fast  and 
thick,  as  soon  as  Luther,  in  his  own  way,  had  prodigal- 
ly given  the  Bible  to  the  people.  The  subject  is  one  in 
which  both  sides  are  supposed  to  have  no  little  interest. 
It  is  but  right,  therefore,  that  on  it  Catholics  as  well  as 
Protestants  should  be  granted  a  hearing. 

Hardly  had  Luther's  translation  seen  the  light,  when 
it  was  condemned  by  his  old  antagonist  Emser,  a  schol- 
ar not  more  distinguished  for  his  devotion  to  Catholic 
principles  than  for  his  thorough  knowledge  of  Latin, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew.  This  accomplished  critic  declared 
that  Luther  had  falsified  the  sacred  text  in  almost  every 
page,  and  that  his  version  contained  nearly  fourteen  hun- 
dred errors  and  corruptions.  The  stormy  temper  of  the 
translator  was  aroused,  and  he  hurled  at  his  remorseless 


292  .  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

censor  the  coarsest  epithets  in  his  foul  vocalubary — "  ass, 
blockhead,  imp  of  Satan,"  etc.  *  "  I  dont  care  (screamed 
Luther)  for  the  Popish  asses,  because  they  are  unable  to 
appreciate  my  labors." '  Yet  he  afterwards  corrected 
several  of  the  errors  which  Emser  and  others  had  ex- 
posed.^ It  was  bad  enough  to  be  thus  severely  handled 
by  his  Catholic  adversaries.  But,  worse  still,  Luther's 
translation  was  condemned  by  the  very  men  who  were 
embarked  in  the  same  cause  with  himself.  Martin 
Bucer,  a  zealous  advocate  of  the  new  doctrines,  did  not 
hesitate  to  say  that "  Luther's  mistakes  in  translating  and 
explaining  the  Scriptures  were  manifest  and  not  a  few."  ' 
Zuinglius,  another  reformer,  "  publicly  announced  that 
Luther's  version  corrupted  the  word  of  God  ;  "  but  Lu- 
ther had  his  revenge  in  this  instance,  for  "  the  Lutherans 
said  the  same  of  the  version  by  Zuinglius."  Leusden's 
criticism  was  equally  severe  with  that  of  Bucer  and 
Zuinglius.  "It  swarmed  (according  to  him)  with  errors." 
Aldigondius  was  still  more  sweeping  in  his  condemna- 
tion of  the  new  German  Bible  by  Luther  ;  "  I  will  freely 
confess  (these  are  his  words)  that  among  all  the  versions 
of  all  translators  none  has  appeared  to  me  to  differ  so 
much  from  the  Hebrew  verity  as  the  version  of  Luther." 
K  translation  of  Luther's  Bible  into  Dutch  was  made  soon 
after  its  appearance  for  the  use  of  Protestants  who  spoke 
that  language,  But  in  161 8-19  this  Dutch  Bible  was 
formally  condemned  by  the  Synod  of  Dort,  which  at  the 
same  time  directed  that  a  new  version  in  Dutch  should 
be  made  from  the  original.  These  facts  have  all  been 
presented  in  'Dixon's  Introeinction  to  the  Sacred  Script^ires.  ^ 
Such  was  the  verdict  pronounced  on  the  version  of 
Luther  by  many  who  lived  at  the  same  time  or  soon 
after,  and  who  had  adopted  either  completely  or  par- 

'   Audin,  Life  of  Luther,  c.  xxiv.  '  Ibid.  ^  Ibid. 

^  Ibid.  ^  Trevtxn's  Amicable  Discuss. ,\q\  i.,  p.  127  (note). 

6  Vol.  I.,  pp.  209.,  210. 


And  Protestant  Versions  of  tJic  Bible.  293 

tially  the  religious  system  of  which  Luther  was  the  found- 
er. A  subsequent  generation  of  German  Protestants 
has  confirmed  that  verdict,  for  in  1836  several  Lutheran 
consistories  expressed  a  wish  for  an  entire  revision  of 
Luther's  Bible  .'  In  fact,  the  Old  Testament,  as  contained 
in  that  Bible,  has  long  since  generally  ceased  to  be  under- 
stood by  the  ordinary  German  reader,  while  in  its  New 
Testament  the  Epistles  have  become  obscure. ""  Luther's 
order  and  arrangement  of  the  books  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment seem  to  have  been  preserved,  up  to  the  present 
time,  without,  however,  his  prefaces,  which  are  no  longer 
found  in  current  German  Protestant  Bibles,  but  have 
been  several  times  published  by  themselves.'' 

Luther's  Old  Testament,  barring  its  mistranslations,  is 
strictly  Jewish,  not  by  any  means  such  as  ever  had  been 
current  among  Christians,  though  probably  equal  to 
any  executed  by  the  early  reformers.  But  Luther's 
New  Testament  is  neither  Protestant  nor  Catholic. 
Certainly  not  Protestant,  because  he  assigned  an  infe- 
rior position  to  four  of  its  books,  which  Protestants  gen- 
erally place  in  the  same  rank  with  the  rest.  And  assur- 
edly not  Catholic,  not  only  for  this  reason,  but  because 
it  abounds  with  so  many  and  such  grave  corruptions 
as  to  render  it  a  base  German  counterfeit  of  the  origin- 
al text. 

These  corruptions,  at  least  many  of  them,  cannot  be 
imputed  to  the  ignorance  of  the  translator,  though  it  is 
admitted,  as  we  have  seen,  that  Luther's  knowledge  of 
Greek  as  well  as  of  Hebrew  was  not  extensive ;  no,  they 
are  to  be  attributed  to  his  own  bad  faith,  and  a  wicked 
purpose  of  perverting  the  sense  of  the  Scripture,  in  or- 
der to  justify  the  errors  he  taught  and  the  profiigate 
career  on  which  he  had  entered.  For,  though  it  was  not 
until  late  in  life  that  he  commenced  the  study  of  He- 

'  Audin,  Life  of  Luther,  c.  xxiv.  '  Ibid. 

^  Reuss,  Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  H.  S.,  p.  338. 


294  T^^^'-  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

brew  and  Greek,  his  familiarity  with  these  languages 
must  have  been  such  that,  had  he  made  an  honest  use  of 
other  means  at  hand,  he  could  have  executed  a  substan-^ 
tially  correct  version  of  the  Bible,  which  all  admit  his 
is  not.  Thus  it  has  been  remarked  '  that  he  had  re- 
course to  the  Vulgate  in  rendering  difficult  passages, 
that  he  translated  the  deutero  books  almost  word  for 
word  from  it,  that  he  made  use  of  an  old  German  Cath- 
olic translation  of  the  Vulgate,  availed  himself  of  the 
Latin  interlinear  translation  of  Sanctes  Pagninus,  and 
above  all,  that  he  derived  great  assistance  from  the 
learned  commentaries  of  a  converted  Jew  who  lived  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  Nicholas  de  Lyra.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  it  has  been  commonly  said,  and  as  common- 
ly admitted  by  critics,  "  Si  Lyra  non  lyrasset,  Luther- 
us  non  saltasset,  vel  Lutherus  delirasset."  It  is  a  play 
upon  the  word  "  Lyra,"  intimating  that,  if  Nicholas  de 
Lyra  had  not  written  his  commentaries,  Luther  would 
have  cut  a  sorry  figure  as  a  translator,  or  would  have 
made  a  fool  of  himself.  That,  as  it  was,  he  distinguished 
himself  in  the  latter  capacity,  not  many  who  have  stud- 
ied his  life  or  read  his  writings  will  be  disposed  to  deny. 
With  all  the  facilities  which  he  possessed  for  writing 
a  correct  translation,  Luther  in  many  instances  failed  to 
produce  a  German  equivalent  for  the  texts  that  lay  be- 
fore him.  He  entered  on  his  task  not  with  the  desire  of 
providing  his  countr3a"nen  with  a  more  faithful  version 
of  the  Scriptures  than  they  already  possessed,  but  with 
the  deliberate  purpose  of  inoculating  them  with  the 
virus  of  his  own  errors,  by  preparing  for  them  a  version 
in  which  those  errors  should  be  actually  sanctioned  by 
the  w^ord  of  God  as  misinterpreted  by  him.  Hence  he 
not  unfrequently  compelled  the  original,  not  only  to 
speak  a  language  which  it  neither  expresses  nor  implies, 
but  to  convey  a  sense   which  it  directly   contradicts. 

'  Comely,  Introd.  in  .  Scrip.,  I.,  p.  490. 


And  Protestant  Versions  of  the  Bible.  295 

And  all  this  in  order- to  extort  from  that  sacred  original 
a  proof,  that  the  wicked  doctrines  which  he  undertook 
to  defend  were  contained  in  the  Scriptures.  How- 
ever, as  those  doctrines  were  antagonistic  rather  to  the 
principles  enunciated  in  the  Christian  than  to  any  truth 
expressed  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  Luther's  perversions 
of  the  sacred  text  are  especially  flagrant,  brazen,  and 
barefaced  in  the  New  Testament. 

To  illustrate  this,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Luther 
taught,  that  among  other  points  on  which  the  whole  of 
Christendom  East  and  West  had  been  mistaken  up  to 
his  time,  were  the  observance  of  clerical  celibacy  and 
the  belief  that  good  works  were  necessary  to  salvation. 
He  therefore  undertook  to  prove,  that  in  these  as  well 
as  other  matters  of  belief  and  practice,  the  Church  was 
in  error.     And  his  proof  brought  conviction  to  all  who 
believed  that,  in  the  base  counterfeit  he  had  substituted 
for  the  Bible,  they  found  the  word  of  God.     Take  for 
example  his  treatment  of  L  Cor.  ix.  5,  where  the  literal 
sense  of  the  passage  is,  "  Have  we  not  the  right  to  lead 
about  a  sister  zvoman,  as  also  the  rest  of  the  apostles? 
etc      Luther  found  here  a  chance  of  proving  one  of  his 
favorite  doctrines,  and  he  determined  to  mistranslate  one 
word,  and  interpolate  another  ;  so  he  rendered  it  thus: 
"  Have  we  not  power  to  lead  about  a  sister /^r  a  wife, 
like  the   rest   of   the   apostles?"  his  object  being    to 
show  that  St.  Paul  and  the  other  apostles  all  had  wives, 
and  consequently  that  clerical  celibacy  was  condemned 
by  apostolic  practice.     It  was  not  enough  for  him  to 
substitute  zvife  for  woman,  the  common  meaning  of  ^;///^. 
but  he  must  represent  St.  Paul  as  claiming  the  right  to 
consort  with  the  sister  in  question,  as  with  his  own 
wife   whereas  it  is  so  clear  from  L  Cor.  vii.  7  that  St. 
Paul  had  no  wife,  that  a  Protestant  commentator  con- 
fesses that  St.  Paul  was  unmarried."  '     In  most  Protestant 

1  Adam  Clark,  on  I.  Cor.  vii.  7. 


296  The  Canoji  of  the  Old  Test avi cut 

translations  the  text  which  Luther  falsified  is  mistrans- 
lated, but  not  so  grossly  as  in  Luther's  Bible.  In  King- 
James's  version,  of  which  Luther's  perverted  Bible  was 
the  basis,  the  clause  in  question  is  "a  sister  a  xvifc.  In 
the  latest  revision  of  that  version,  for  it  had  to  be  often 
corrected,  it  is  "a  wife  that  is  a  believer."  Possibly, 
when  the  next  revision  of  the  so  called  Authorised  J^ersion 
is  made,  zw man  wiW  be  as  it  ought  to  be  substituted  for 
wife.  For  gune,  as  just  remarked,  unless  otherwise  im- 
plied in  the  context,  means  simply  a  woman,  whether 
married  or  single.  Thus  St.  Peter,  Luke  xxii.  57.  '  ac- 
costs ?LSgiinai — woman — the  //^rt:/</— paidiske — who  ques- 
tioned him.  And  in  the  first  twelve  verses  after  I.  Cor.  xi. 
gune  is  translated  woman  no  less  than  sixteen  times. '  Lu- 
ther's translation,  in  this  instance,  though  a  shameless 
perversion  of  God's  holy  word,  would  have  justified  with 
most  readers  his  relations  with  the  escaped  nun,  had  it 
not  been  for  tlie  vows  of  both.  How  many  ecclesiastics, 
high  and  low,  were  led  astrav  at  the  time  by  his  perni- 
cious example,  and  the  vile  principles  he  contrived  to 
infuse  into  his  German  Bible  and  other  writings!  The 
obvious  meaning  of  the  passage  is  that  Paul  and  Barna- 
bas claimed  the  right  of  leading  around  with  them  "a 
sister  woman"  or  pious  matron,  to  minister  to  their 
wants,  as  the  other  apostles  did,  but  declined  to  do  so 
for  fear  of  giving  offence  to  the  Gentiles  among  whom 
they  labored.  That  it  was  probably  not  unusual '  among 
the  Jews  for  teachers  to  have  in  their  company  pious 
females  for  this  very  purpose,  appears  from  the  practice 
of  Our  Lord  mentioned  in  Luke  viii.  2,  3,  where  several 
women  are  named  who  ministered  to  Him  of  their  sub- 
stance. In  fact,  "  sister  woman  "  implies  and  can  imply 
nothing  else  than  a  Christian  woman  devoted  in  some 
way  to  the  service  of  religion,  and  so  entitled  to  the 

'   'L^iSi  KqVxs'ww  o{  AiitJiprizL'd  Version.  '^   Ibid. 

■''  Vide  S.   ferome  on  Matt,  xwiii. 


And  Protestant  Versions  of  tiie  Bible.  297 

name  of  sistci\  but  not  at  all  of  wife,  as  there  is  nothing 
in  the  text  that  would  occasion  the  suspicion  that,  even 
if  married,  there  was  any  allusion  to  her  conjugal  duties. 
Indeed,  such  suspicion  could  occur  only  to  a  mind  lost 
to  all  sense  of  shame  and  religion,  like  that  of  Martin 
Luther. 

The  same  motive  which  induced  Luther  to  pervert 
the  sense  of  the  text  in  L  Cor.  ix.  5,  controlled  his  pen 
when  translating  L  Timothy  iii.  12,  where  the  literal 
sense  is,  "  Let  deacons  be  husbands  of  one  wife,"  which 
he  makes,  "  Let  deacons  be  eacJi  the  husband  of  one 
wife."  In  the  Greek  original  there  is  no  such  word  as 
eacJi;  and  husbands,  not  husband,  is  the  correct  reading. 
The  object  of  S.  Paul  was  to  exclude  from  the  ministry 
all  who  had  been  married  more  than  once.  But  this 
did  not  coincide  with  Luther's  idea  of  evangelical  lib- 
erty. So,  by  falsifying  the  text,  he  makes  St.  Paul  say, 
that  none  but  a  married  man  could  be  a  deacon.  That 
that  is  not  at  all  the  meaning  of  the  Apostle  is  quite 
certain,  although  Protestant  commentators  generally, 
while  substantially  agreeing  with  the  Catholic  version, 
insist  with  Luther,  that  St.  Paul  directed  that  only  men 
having  each  one  tvife  should  be  promoted  to  the  diacon- 
ate.  So  far  as  the  possession  of  one  wife  is  concerned, 
the  same  rule  laid  down  in  the  text  before  us  is  found 
in  I.  Tim.  iii.  2,  as  applicable  to  a  bishop,  whom  "  It 
behooveth  ...  to  be  the  husband  of  one  tvife,''  and  in 
the  Epistle  to  Titus,  i.  6,  according  to  which  Titus  was 
to  ordain  as  priest  any  one  who,  besides  other  necessary 
qualifications,  was  "  the  husband  of  one  wife.''  Now,  in 
none  of  these  passages  is  there  any  allusion  to  polygamy 
or  polyandry,  synchronous  or  consecutive.  For  among 
Christians  such  a  state  was  never  permitted.  All  the 
texts  in  question  must  therefore  mean  either  what 
Catholics  say  they  do,  that  no  one  was  to  be  admitted 
to  the  Christian  ministry  who  had  married  more  than 


298  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

once,  or  what  is  insisted  on  by  Protestants  following  in 
the  wake  of  Luther,  and  thus  adopting  his  interpretation 
while  rejecting  his  rendering  of  I.  Tim.  iii.  12,  that  St. 
Paul  directed  that  no  one  who  was  not  actually  pos- 
sessed of  one  wife  should  be  ordained  deacon,  priest,  or 
bishop.  But  if  Protestants  be  right  in  thus  explaining 
these  texts,  what  is  to  be  said  of  all  those  preachers 
high  and  low  who  have  spent  the  whole  or  part  of 
their  ministerial  career  witJioiit  a  wife,  despite  the  in- 
spired injunction  of  Paul,  as  in  their  good-fellow-like 
way  they  call  the  author  of  the  above  texts  ?  What  is  to 
be  thought  of  the  congregations  which  permitted  those 
bachelor  ministers  to  occupy  pulpits,  to  baptize,  and 
administer  the  Lord's  supper?  And  what  apology  shall 
be  urged  for  St.  Paul,  who,  while  a  minister  himself, 
required  other  ministers  to  take  wives  before  their 
ordination,  while  he  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  remained 
"  unmarried  "?  Why  did  he  not  observe  the  command- 
ment he  gave  to  others?  If  a  poor  deacon  must,  before 
being  promoted,  be  necessarily  provided  with  a  wife,  it 
is  hard  to  see  why,  as  the  case  may  turn  out,  an  apostle 
should  not  be  burthened  with  the  same  responsibility 
or  blessed  with  the  same  luxury.  Nothing  more  is 
needed  to  expose  the  absurdity  of  the  conclusion,  which 
Luther  and  all  his  followers  have  drawn  from  the  texts 
of  St.  Paul.  It  follows  that  the  Catholic  interpretation 
of  those  texts  is  the  only  one  consistent  with  evangelical 
principles,  with  apostolic  usage,  and  with  primitive 
Christian  practice.  In  the  Church  a  once  married  man 
can,  if  otherwise  qualified,  be  ordained  sub-deacon,  dea- 
con, and  priest,  on  condition  that  his  wife,  if  living, 
consents  and  makes  a  vow  of  chastity,  and  furthermore 
enters  a  religious  order,  in  case  he  is  consecrated  bishop. 
Look  again  at  I.  Tim.  iii.  11,  and  see  with  what 
brazen  impudence  Luther,  in  order  to  persuade  his 
simple  German  readers  that  Christian  ministers  should 


And  Protestant  Versions  of  the  Bible.  299 

have  wives,  put  into  the  mouth  of  St.  Paul  words  which 
that  Apostle  never  uttered.  The  chapter  commences 
with  a  reference  to  the  duties  of  a  bishop.  Next  the 
qualifications  of  deacons  are  explained,  and  while  dis- 
cussing this  subject,  St.  Paul,,  as  literally  interpreted, 
remarks,  "  women  in  like  manner  chaste,"  etc.  This 
Luther  distorts,  "  Like  themselves  tJieir  wives  shall  be," 
etc.,  as  if  it  was  not  of  women  generally,  or  the  religious 
class  of  their  sex,  that  the  Apostle  was  speaking,  as  the 
text  implies,  but  of  the  deacons'  zvivcs.  To  their  shame 
be  it  said,  that  King  James's  translators  substantially 
adopted  Luther's  rendering,  even  while  they  knew  it 
was  a  forgery ;  for  they  placed  in  italics  the  words  con- 
veying Luther's  false  interpretation,  thus  confessing 
that  the  German  translator  had  added  to  the  text  ivords 
which  it  did  not  contain,  yet  slavishly,  shall  we  say 
impiously,  giving  currency  in  their  English  version  to 
the  sense  expressed  by  those  words.  Their  rendering 
is,  "  Even  so  must  tJieir  ivives  be."  etc.  The  latest  re- 
visers of  that  version,  however,  ashamed  as  they  well 
might  be  of  the  wilful  perversion  perpetrated  in  this 
instance  bv  the  authors  of  that  version,  have  correctly 
restored  the  sense  of  the  original  by  thus  translating  the 
text,  "  women  in  like  manner." 

These  examples  will  show  how  blasphemously  Luther 
treated  the  Scripture,  in  order  to  support  his  views  re- 
garding clerical  celibacy.  A  few  references  will  con- 
vince the  reader  that  Luther  endeavored  by  the  same 
means  to  establish  the  uselessness  of  good  works,  and 
the  absolute  sufficiency  of  faith  for  eternal  salvation. 

In  Romans  iii.  28  we  read,  as  the  original  has  it :  "  For 
we  account  a  man  to  be  justified  by  faith  without  the 
works  of  the  law."  Luther's  translation  here  is  :  "  Hence 
we  hold  that  a  man  becomes  righteous  without  the 
works  of  the  law,  alone  through  faith."  The  word  alone 
is  not  in  the  original,  but  is  adroitly  slipped  into  the 


300  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

passage,  in  order  to  persuade  the  reader  that  to  be  saved 
faith  alone  is  required.  There  must  therefore  still  be  a 
chance  for  Lucifer.  Again,  in  Romans  iv.  6,  St.  Paul 
writes :  "  As  David  also  termeth  the  blessedness  of  a 
man  to  whom  God  reputeth  justice  without  works." 
Luther's  version  of  the  text  is  :  "As  also  David  saith, 
that  happiness  is  that  man's  alone,  to  whom  God  reput- 
eth justice  without  works."  Here  the  word  alone  is 
again  emplo3'ed  to  pervert  the  Apostle's  meaning.  In 
rendering  these  texts  the  authors  of  the  English  Protes- 
tant version  recoiled  from  imitating  the  impiety  of 
Luther.  Hence  the  reader  of  that  version  does  not  find 
the  word  alone  or  anything  like  it  in  the  texts  just  cited. 
But  Luther,  by  a  dexterous  though  sacrilegious  use  of 
such  a  handy  word,  hoped  to  convince  his  readers  that 
he  had  the  authority  of  St.  Paul  for  teaching  that  "  no 
sin,  however  great,  except  unbelief,  can  damn  a  man."  ' 
That  he  to  a  certain  extent  succeeded  is  proved  b}'  the 
immoral  lives  of  those, who  adopted  the  code  of  ethics 
which  he  instituted.  It  was  useless  to  reason  or  re- 
monstrate with  such  a  man.  When  reminded  that  he 
had  flagrantly  corrupted  the  sacred  text  by  interpola- 
ting: the  word  alone,  he  obstinatelv  refused  to  make  the 
necessary  correction,  saying :  "  So  I  will,  so  I  com- 
mand ;  let  my  will  be  instead  of  reason  ;  "  and  concluded 
thus:  "  The  word  alone  must  remain  in  m}^  New  Tes- 
tament ;  although  all  the  Papists  seem  mad,  they  shall 
not  take  it  from  thence  ;  it  grieves  me  that  I  did  not  add 
also  these  two  other  words,  ivithoiit  all  ti'oi-ks  of  all  lazes.'' 
But  enough  has  been  said  about  Luther's  views  regard- 
ing the  canon,  and  the  use  he  has  made  of  its  contents. 
Calvin's  version. — This  was  a  French  translation  of 
theBible  and  was  printed  in  1534.  It  was  written  by 
Peter  Olivetan,  whose  knowledge  of  French  as  well  as 
of  Hebrew  and  Greek  was  imperfect.     But  he  received 

1  Luther's  treatise (/c  Ca/'f.  y9i7(^i7.  — SeeHallam,  Z?V.  of  Ettr.,  P.  L,  305,  note. 


A  nd  Protestant  J  Wsions  of  the  Bible.  30 1 

assistance  from  Calvin,  of  whom  he  was  a  relative,  and 
to  whom  his  translation,  whatever  its  merits,  may  be 
ascribed.  What  these  merits  were  may  be  inferred  from 
the  criticism  of  Dumoulin,  a  learned  French  Calvinistic 
minister,  who  says  that  Calvin  does  violence  to  the  let- 
ter of  the  Gospel,  which  he  has  changed,  making  also 
additions  of  his  own.  It  appears,  besides,  that  the  minis- 
ters of  Geneva  believed  themselves  obliged  to  make  an 
exact  version,  but  James  I.  of  England  declared  in  the 
conference  of  Hampton  Court  that  of  all  the  versions 
it  was  the  most  wicked  and  the  most  unfaithful.  So 
wrote  Trevern,  Bishop  of  Strasburg,  in  1817.  ' 

CEcolampadius  and  the  divines  of  Basle,  as  we  are 
told  by  the  writer  just  cited,  -  made  another  version, 
which,  according  to  the  famous  Beza,  was  impious  in 
many  parts.  But  it  appears  that  the  divines  of  Basle 
said  the  same  of  a  similar  production  by  Beza.  For  at 
the  time  the  tongue  or  pen  of  every  true  reformer  was 
never  idle,  whether  it  was  the  Bible  that  was  to  be  paro- 
died, or  some  other  true  reformer  that  was  to  be  abused. 
This  Theodore  Beza  was  the  successor  of  Calvin  at 
Geneva,  and  the  author  of  a  Latin  translation  of  the 
New  Testament,  printed  in  1556.  Critics,  Protestant  as 
well  as  Catholic,  are  unsparing  in  their  condemnation  of 
the  work.  Dumoulin  charges  the  author  with  changing 
in  it  the  text  of  Scripture. '  The  Anglican  bishop  Wal- 
ton, a  disinterested  witness,  says  of  it:  "There  are  not 
wanting  those  who  judge  that  the  author  was  too  bold, 
while  too  often  without  necessity  he  recedes  from  the 
common  reading,  and,  relying  on  the  authority  of  one 
or  no  manuscript,  exercises  dictatorial  power  by  conjec- 
tural changes  and  arbitrary  interpolations  of  the  sacred 
text."'  MacKnight,  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  minister, 
who  died  in  1800,  candidly  admits  that  Beza  "  mistrans- 

'  Amicable  Discussion,  Vol.  i.,  127,  note.  ^  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.  "  Proleg.  iv.  15. 


302  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

lated  a  number  of  texts,  for  the  purpose,  as  it  would 
seem,  of  establishing  his  peculiar  doctrines  and  of  con- 
futing his  opponents.  .  .  .  Farther,  by  omitting  some  of 
the  original  words,  and  by  adding  others,  he  hath  in  his 
translation  perverted,  or  at  least  darkened,  some  pas- 
sages ;  so  that,  to  speak  impartially,  his  translation  is 
neither  literal  nor  faithful  nor  perspicuous."  Beza  as  a 
translator  has  since  been  conclusively  proved  bv  a 
learned  writer  *  in  the  Ainertcan  Catholic  Quarterly  ^  to 
have  been  simpl}-  "  a  perverter  of  God's  Word."  In- 
deed, MacKnight's  criticism  must  have  alread}-  con- 
vinced many  a  Protestant  that  the  successor  of  Calvin 
had  well  earned  the  title  conferred  on  him  by  the  Amer- 
ican Reviewer ;  unfortunately,  it  is  onl}'  recentl}^  that  his 
right  to  that  title  has  been  generally  admitted.  For 
MacKnight,  after  indignantly  .denouncing  his  impious 
treatment  of  the  Scriptures,  adds  :  "  Nevertheless  Beza, 
having  great  fame,  both  as  a  linguist  and  a  divine,  the 
learned  men  who  afterwards  translated  the  New  Testa- 
ment for  the  use  of  the  reformed  churches  were  too 
much  swayed  by  his  opinions."  '  This  last  remark  ap- 
plies particularl}^  to  the  writers  of  those  translations 
which  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Protestants  in 
Great  Britain  and  its  colonies.  For  these  translations 
were  based  on  the  same  vicious  principles,  which  have 
wrung  from  Protestant  critics  an  unwilling  condemna- 
tion of  the  version  by  Beza.  Wittenberg  furnished  a 
model  for  all  Protestant  bibles  in  Northern  Europe,  and 
along  with  Geneva  enabled  the  reformers  in  Great  Brit- 
ain to  provide  their  country  with  versions  of  the  Script- 
ures adapted  to  the  religious  principles  recently  intro- 
duced there.  For  at  the  time  it  was  usual  with  those 
outside  the  Church,  as  it  still  is  the  custom  of  that  class, 

>   Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Corcoran.  "  Vol.  IV.,  ,No.  15  ;  Vol.  V.,  No.  20. 

^  Pre/ace  to  a  Translation  of  the  Apostolical  Epistles.  — S^e  also  Dixon,  A 
■Gen.  Introd.  to  the  S.  Scrip..  I.,  p.  208. 


And  Protestant  Versions  of  the  Bible.  303 

to  regulate  the  Bible  by  their  creed,  instead  of  shaping 
their  creed  by  the  Bible.  Now,  as  the  creed  of  no  Prot- 
estant country  ever  was,  or  is  now,  a  constant  quanti- 
ty, the  Protestant  Bible,  wherever  it  has  appeared  or 
whatever  its  language,  has  undergone  more  changes  than 
any  book  that  was  ever  written.  But  it  is  time  to  turn  our 
attention  to  some  of  the  attempts  made  by  the  English 
reformers  to  supph'  their  followers  with  what  they  called 
the  word  of  God,  especially  as  the  Protestant  Bibles 
described  in  the  preceding  remarks  will  enable  the  read- 
er to  form  a  fair  estimate  of  the  other  versions  pre- 
pared b}'  the  reformers  in  the  continent  of  Europe. 

All  the  English  Protestant  versions  contained  without 
any  distinction  the  deutero  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, which  are  generally  designated  the  Antilegomcna 
by  Protestant  writers.  It  was  not  so,  however,  with  the 
deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  These,  when  in- 
serted in  the  same  volume  with  the  other  books,  were 
commonly  assigned  such  a  position,  or  given  such  a  ti- 
tle, as  implied  that  they  were  of  inferior  authority.  In 
fact,  this  arrangement,  when  the  books  in  question  were 
not  absolutel}'  excluded  from  the  volume  supposed  to 
contain  the  Holy  Scriptures,  was  adopted  in  all  Protes- 
tant translations.  Nor  need  this  be  a  matter  of  sur- 
prise. For  Professor  Smith  *  confesses  that  "  the  re- 
formers and  their  successors,  up  to  the  time  when  all 
Protestant  versions  were  fixed,  were  for  all  purposes  of 
learning  in  the  hands  of  Rabbins."  But  what  are  we 
to  think  of  versions  with  which  the  enemies  of  Christ 
and  of  the  Christian  religion  had  anything  to  do  ? 

Tyndale's  Bible. — William  Tyndale,  an  apostate 
priest,  was  the  first  to  attempt  an  English  Protestant 
translation.  Compelled  to  abandon  England,  he  fled  to 
the  Continent.  And  no  sooner  had  he  landed  at  Ham- 
burg than  he  hastened  to  greet  Luther  at  Wittenberg.  * 

1    The  O.  T.  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  44.        ^  Encycl.  Britt.,  English  Bible. 


304  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

There  he  probably  commenced  his  translation  of  the 
New  Testament.  And  in  it  he  adopted  Luther's  pref- 
aces to  the  several  books,  as  well  as  many  of  Luther's 
annotations.  The  translation  was  printed  at  Cologne, 
in  1526,  and  appeared  the  same  year  in  England.  He 
also  translated  the  Five  Books  of  Moses,  Jonas,  and,  ac- 
cording to  some,  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  far 
as  the  end  of  Paralipomena.  Hallam,^  after  observing 
that  Luther's  translation  "  is  more  renowned  for  the 
purity  of  its  German  idiom  than  for  its  adherence  to  the 
original  text,"  admits  that  it  was  "from  this  translation, 
however,  and  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  the  English  one 
of  Tyndale. ...  is  avowedly  taken."  His  reason  for  say- 
ing so  being  that  Tyndale  was  ignorant  of  Hebrew,  and 
had  but  a  slight,  if  any,  knowledge  of  Greek.  Sir 
Thomas  More,  in  a  notice  of  Tyndale's  translation,  says 
that  in  it  such  old  Christian  vv^ords  as  church,  priest,  anoint- 
ing, consecrating,  sacraments,  ceremonies,  were  changed 
into  congregation,  seniors,  smearing,  cJiarming,  ceremo- 
nies, witcJicraft.  ^  It  will  thus  be  perceived  that  Tyn- 
dale's vocabulary  as  a  translator  differed  altogether,  not 
only  from  that  of  the  Catholic  versions  current  in  Eng- 
land at  the  time,  but  from  that  of  the  Protestant  version 
used  there  at  present.  Permitted  by  God  to  take  part  in 
preparing  the  way  for  Puritanism,  he  therefore  con- 
cluded that  the  most  effectual  way  to  succeed  in  that 
unholy  mission  was  not  only  to  corrupt  the  Bible  of  his 
countrymen,  but  to  cheat  them  out  of  that  form  of 
speech  which,  so  long  as  they  r-etained,  they  would  prob- 
ably have  remained  Catholics.  Had  he  been  spared  to 
complete  his  version  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted,that  its  deutero  books  would  have  been  treat- 
ed by  him  with  as  little  consideration  as  they  received 
from  his  friend  and  adviser  at  Wittenberg. 

'   Encycl.  Britt.,  English  Bible.  -  Liicrat.  of  Europe,  Part  I.,  p.  380. 

3  Milner's  Anyiuer  to  Crier's  Reply  (Ward's  Errata'). 


And  Protestant  Versions  of  t lie  Bible.  305 

Coverdale's  Bible.— Miles  Coverdale,  like  Luther 
an  apostate  Augustinian  friar,  and  afterwards  for  a  few 
3'ears  Anglican  bishop  of  Exeter  under  Edward  VI., 
translated  the  entire  Bible  into  English.  It  was  pub- 
lished in  1 536,  and  was  the  first  to  receive  royal  authority. 
The  defects  of  Tyndale's  Bible,  besides  its  incomplete- 
ness, had  probably  been  found  to  be  such  that  the  re- 
formers demanded  another  more  in  accordance  with  the 
original  text,  perhaps  w^ith  their  own  motley  belief.  The 
title  of  Coverdale's  Bible  was  "  Biblia.  The  Bible,  that 
is,  the  Holy  Scripture  of  the  Okie  and  New  Testament, 
faithfully  and  truly  translated  out  of  Douche  and  Latyn 
into  Englishe,  MDXXXV."  Hallam  '  has  therefore 
very  truthfully  remarked,  that  Coverdale's  Bible  "  is 
avowedly  taken"  from  Luther's  translation  and  the  Lat- 
in Vulsrate.  Dr.  Davidson,  '  in  an  article  on  Versions, 
says  of  Coverdale's  Bible  that,  "although  the  author 
had  the  benefit  of  Tyndale's,  his  work  must  be  consid- 
ered inferior.  In  addition  to  ihe  culpable  obsequious- 
ness of  Coverdale,  he  was  not  so  well  skilled  in  the  orig- 
inal languages  of  the  Scriptures,  and  had  therefore  to 
rely  on  the  German  and  Latin."  It  was  therefore  from 
bad  to  worse,  when  English  Protestants  betook  them- 
selves for  a  rule  of  faith  from  Tyndale's  Bible  to  Cover- 
dale's.  In  the  latter  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  were  divided  from  the  proto  and  printed 
separately,  with  the  exception  of  Baruch,  '  which  was 
allowed  to  retain  its  place,  until  another  edition  appeared 
in  1550,  when  it  was  ranked  among  the  deutero.  These 
books  were  called  by  Coverdale  in  his  Bible  "  The  Vol- 
ume of  the  Book  called  the  Hagiographa." 

Matthew's  Bible, — so  called  probably  because  a 
person  of  that  name  had  most  to  do  in  its  preparation, 
was  published  in  1537.  It  was  simply  a  revision  of  Tyn- 

'  Literature  of  Europe,  Part  L,  p.  380. 

-  Kitto's  Cycl.,  IL,  918.  ^  Ibid.,  I.,  556. 


3o6  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

dale's  as  far  as  the  latter  went,  the  remainder  of  the  Old 
Testament  having  been  translated  by  John  Rogers,  alias 
Matthew,  with  perhaps  some  assistance  from  Cover- 
dale's.  In  it  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  separated  from  the  others,  and  entitled,  "  The 
volume  of  the  book  called  Hagiographa."  It  contains 
Olivetan's  preface  in  Calvin's  version,  wherein  the  Old 
Testament  deutero  books  are  referred  to  rather  disre- 
spectfully. 

Taverner's  Bible, — the  work  of  Richard  Tavern er, 
was  published  in  1539.  It  was  nothing  more  than  the 
Matthew  Bible  corrected. 

Cranmer's  Bible, — so  named  because  published,  in 
1539,  underthe  auspices  of  the  notorious  Anglican  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  went  through  several  editions, 
each,  like  all  the  preceding  Bibles,  proving  b}^  its  appear- 
ance that,  notwithstanding  all  that  had  been  done  to 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  British  Protestants  for  the  Script- 
ures, England  had  not  yet  secured  the  pure  word  of 
God.  Indeed,  this  was  admitted  b}^  the  most  learned 
Protestants  in  the  country  at  the  time.  In  Cranmer's 
Bible  the  Ohvetan  preface  was  retained,  and  "  the  volume 
of  the  book  called  Hagiographa  "  prefixed  to  the  col- 
lection of  Old  Testament  deutero  books.  But  in  the  edi- 
tion of  1549  Apocrypha  was  substituted  for  Hagiographa. 
Cranmer's  Bible  is  no  more  than  the  translation  of  Tyn- 
dale  and  Rogers  '  revised,  with  a  prologue  by  Cranmer. 
On  account  of  its  size  it  was  also  called  the  Great  Bible. 
The  Geneva  or  Breeches  Bible,  as  it  is  sometimes  called, 
because  in  Gen.  iii.  7  the  translator  had  substituted 
breeches  for  apron,  was  printed  in  1560,  at  Geneva,  and  is 
the  work  of  William  Whittingham,  Antony  Gibby,  and 
Thomas  Sampson,  all  fugitive  reformers.  In  it  the  deu- 
tero books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  printed  separately, 
with  a  preface,  in  which  they  are  treated  with    much 

'  Allibone's  Dictionary  of  Authors. 


A  nd  Protestant  Versions  of  the  Bible.  307 

reverence,  though  not  considered  sufficiently  authorita- 
tive to  establish  any  point  of  Christian  doctrine.  In  the 
parallel  passages  which  the  margin  of  this  translation 
contains,  references  are  even  made  to  the  deutero  books. 
The  Geneva  Bible  was  not  an  original  work  but  a  re- 
vision of  the  Great  Bible.  ' 

The  Bishops'  Bible, — otherwise  called  Parker's,  was 
published  in  1568,  under  the  superintendence  of  Matthew 
Parker,  Anglican  Archbishop  of  Canterbur}-.  There 
were  fifteen  translators  emplo_yed  upon  it,  and  eight  of 
them  being  bishops,  it  was  called  the  Bishops'  Bible.  It, 
too,  was  a  revision  of  the  Great  Bible,  as  appears  b}-  one 
of  the  rules  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  the  translators, ' 
who,  however,  were  to  consult  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
originals.  The  Olivetan  preface  was  omitted  in  the 
Bishops'  Bible.  But  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Tes^ 
tament,  or,  as  they  were  then  generall}'  designated,  the 
Apocrypha,  appeared  therein  by  themselves  under  that 
title,  being  thus,  as  in  all  other  English  Protestant  Bibles, 
excluded  from  what  the  reformers  considered  the  pure 
word  of  God. 

1  EncycL  Britt.,  Blunt  on  En^.  Bible.  2  jbij. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


The  English  Protestant  Bible. 

All  these  English  translations,  revisions,  and  editions 
having  been  made  like  those  by  the  continental  reform- 
ers for  the  purpose  of  extorting  from  the  Bible  a  reason, 
or  at  least  an  apolog}^  for  the  violent  suppression  of  the 
religion  which  the  people  of  England  had  all  along  pro- 
fessed, they  simply  reflected  the  opinions  of  their  authors, 
not  the  doctrines  which  God  had  revealed  in  the  Divine 
Scriptures.  Brought  out  one  after  another  in  rapid  suc- 
cession, these  counterfeit  copies  of  the  Word  of  God 
unsettled  the  minds  of  their  readers,  who,  as  instructed 
by  their  teachers,  supposed  themselves  authorized  to 
interpret  the  Scriptures  each  one  for  himself ;  and  believ- 
ing that  the  book  placed  in  their  hands  contained  the 
very  words,  or  at  least  the  exact  doctrines,  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  had  communicated  to  mankind,  they  organ- 
ized themselves  into  innumerable  conflicting  sects,  which 
soon  developed  into  mutually  hostile  factions,  whose 
struggles  for  supremacy  hardly  ceased,  even  when  al- 
tar and  throne  had  been  overturned,  and  a  Church  estab- 
lished with  a  creed  so  comprehensive,  yet  so  indefinite, 
as  to  embrace,  so  far  as  that  was  possible,  all  existing 
shades  of  Protestant  belief. 

There  were,  however,  not  wanting  men  entitled  to  a 
respectful  hearing,  by  their  learning  and  social  position, 
who  protested  vehemently  against  the  profanation  and 
corruption    of   the  sacred   text   bv  such    unscrupulous 

308 


The  Canon  of  the  O.  T.  and  English  Protestant  Bible .  309 

translators  as  the  Tyndales,  Coverdales,  etc.,  of  the  time. 
Among  those  who  so  protested  were  ministers  of  the 
gospel,  statesmen,  and  university  professors,  all  staunch 
advocates  of  the  reformation.  Thus  a  number  of  peti- 
tioners who  addressed  "  his  most  excellent  majesty,  King 
James  L,"  on  the  subject,  comp-lained  "  that  our  trans- 
lation of  the  Psalms,  comprised  in  our  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  doth,  in  addition,  subtraction,  and  al- 
teration, differ  from  the  truth  of  the  Hebrew  in  at 
least  two  hundred  places."  The  ministei's  of  Lincoln 
Diocese  also  urged  on  the  royal  attention,  while  refer- 
ring to  the  Protestant  Bible  then  in  use,  that  it  "  is  a  trans- 
lation that  takes  away  from  the  text,  that  adds  to  the 
text,  and  that,  sometimes,  to  the  changing  or  obscuring 
of  the  meaning  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  "  they  denounced  it 
still  further  as  "  a  translation  which  is  absurd  and  sense- 
less, perverting  in  many  places  the  meaning  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  Hugh  Broughton,  a  minister,  the  most  accom- 
plished Hebrew  scholar  of  his  time  and  thoroughly 
versed  in  Rabbinical  learning,  in  his  advertisements  of 
corruptions,  tells  the  Anglican  bishops  "  that  their  pub- 
lic translation  of  Scriptures  into  English  is  such,  that 
it  perverts  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament  in  eight  hun- 
dred and  forty  eight  places,  and  that  it  causes  millions 
of  millions  to  reject  the  New  Testament,  and  to  run  to 
eternal  flames."  King  James,  as  he  is  reported  to  have 
said,  had  surely  good  reason  to  complain  "  that  he  could 
never  see  a  Bible  well  translated  into  English."  These 
statements,  and  many  more  of  the  same  character,  with 
the  proper  references,  will  be  found  in  Ward's  Errata. 
"  Corrupt,"  "  absurd,"  "  senseless,"  "  contrary,"  and 
*'  perverting  the  meaning  of  the  Holy  Ghost  "  are  the 
words  used  by  learned  Protestant  writers  to  character- 
ize the  Protestant  translations  of  the  Bible  prepared 
for  the  use  of  the  English  people. 
King  James's  Bible.— Convinced  that  so  far  no  modern 


3IO  Tiic  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

translation  deserving  that  name  had  been  made  of  the 
Scriptures,  King  James  I.  directed  that  a  new  version 
from  the  original  languages  of  the  Bible  should  be  writ- 
ten, and  care  taken  to  correct  the  corruptions  which 
previous  English  translators  had  introduced  into  the  text. 
Fort3*-seven  learned  men  were  selected  for  the  purpose, 
and  rules  laid  down  for  their  guidance  by  the  king. 
Four  or  five  years  were  spent  b}^  them  on  the  task. 
And  the  New,  or,  as  it  is  often  called,  the  authorized 
version,  or  King  James's  Bible — the  same  having  been 
ever  since  used  by  all  English  speaking  Protestants — 
was  published  in  1611.  In  it,  as  already  stated,  the 
deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  separated 
from  the  others,  and  under  the  title  of  ApoerypJia  ap- 
pended to  "that  part  of  the  Bible.  At  present  the 
"  authorized  "  version  is  usually  published  without  them. 
Of  this  version  Dr.  Davidson,  often  cited  in  the  present 
work,  said  in  1845  •  "  It  need  scarcely  be  stated  that  King 
James's  translators  have  failed  to  apprehend  the  true 
meaning  in  many  passages.  Of  the  merit  attaching  to 
their  version  a  considerable  share  belongs  to  Tyndale. 
Parker's  Bible  was  the  professed  basis,  and  that  was  a 
i"evision  of  Cranmer's.  Cranmer's  Bible  was  a  revision 
of  Matthew's,  or,  in  other  words,  of  Tyndale's.  Thus 
King  James's  translation  resolves  itself,  in  no  small  meas- 
ure, into  Tyndale's."  ' 

But  long  before  this  criticism  appeared  it  had  been 
conclusively  shown  that  King  James's  translators  not 
only  "  failed  to  apprehend  the  true  meaning  in  many  pass- 
ages," but  that  they  wilfully,  shamelessly,  and  criminally 
mistranslated  almost  innumerable  texts,  with  the  obvious 
intention  of  persuading  their  readers  that  the  Protestant 
religion  was  sanctioned  and  the  Catholic  religion  con- 
demned by  the  Bible.  For,  having  been  selected  on 
account  of  their  knowledge  of  the  languages  in  which 

1  Kittos  CycL,  Vol.  II.,  p.  919. 


A7id  English  Protestant  Bible.  3  i  i 

the  Bible  was  originally  written,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  "  they  failed  to  apprehend  the  true  meaning  "  of 
the  text  in  passages  which  the  merest  tyro  in  those 
languages,  at  least  with  the  assistance  of  the  Vulgate 
and  other  early  versions,  could  easily  interpret.  Yet 
there  are  many  such  passages  which  those  learned 
linguists  mistranslated,  and  generally  in  a  sense  favor- 
able to  their  own  religious  belief,  and  condemnator}-  of 
certain  doctrines  taught  by  the  Catholic  Church.  Let 
any  unprejudiced  reader  consult  Ward's  Errata  of  the 
Protestant  Bible,  and  he  will  be  convinced  that  in  these 
remarks  the  faults,  of  which  King  James's  translators 
were  guilty,  have  not  been  exaggerated.  And  though 
many  of  the  falsifications  which  Ward  in  1688  exposed 
to  public  reprobation  had,  as  he  admitted,  been  corrected 
before  that,  and  others  have  been  corrected  since,  quite 
a  number  still  remain  to  prove  that  the  men,  who  made 
the  last  English  Protestant  version  of  the  Bible,  basely 
and  criminally  abused  the  trust  reposed  in  them,  and 
imposed  on  all  English  speaking  Protestants  throughout 
the  world  what  is  in  many  respects  nothing  but  a  men- 
dacious parody  of  God's  holy  word.  That  it  is  such 
can  be  very  easily  shown.  But  before  citing  a  few  out 
of  the  many  instances  in  which  these  translators  wilfully 
perverted  the  meaning  of  the  text  before  them;  in  oi'der 
to  convince  all  into  whose  hands  their  version  might 
fall,  that  Protestantism  was  the  religion  of  the  Bible, 
and  Catholicity  a  gross  superstition  condemned  by  the 
Bible;  we  must  say  a  word  or  two  regarding  the  men, 
whose  labors  on  the  Bible  were  for  manv  ages  to  regu- 
late in  a  great  measure  the  religious  views  of  Protes- 
tants, wherever  the  English  language  should  be  spoken. 
The  translators  consisted  mainly  of  two  factions  bitter- 
ly opposed  to  each  other,  but  ready  for  the  time  being 
to  forget  their  differences  and  unite  for  the  success  of  any 
scheme  contrived  for  the  extermination  of  what  they  re- 


312  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

garded  the  common  enemy,  Popery,  as  they  designated 
the  Catholic  religion.  These  two  factions  were  Angli- 
cans and  Puritans,  or  Episcopalians  and  Calvinists,  the 
former  the  defenders  and  the  latter  the  opponents  of 
prelacy.  The  Anglicans  professed  a  heresy  which  had 
its  origin  in  England  ;  the  Puritans  advocated  another, 
which  had  been  imported  from  Geneva.  Their  version 
was  the  outgrowth  of  all  the  Protestant  Bibles  which 
had  circulated  in  Ens^land  since  the  time  of  Tvndale, 
whose  Bible  served  as  a  basis  for  it,  as  it  had  done  for  all 
the  rest.  But  the  authors  of  King  James's  version  had  a 
more  difficult  task  to  perform  than  had  fallen  to  the  lot 
of  those  who  had  preceded  them  in  the  same  field  of 
labor.  The  latter  wrote  each  in  the  interest  of  one 
party;  the  former  had  to  consult  the  prejudices  not  only 
of  two  main  factions,  but  of  the  several  cliques  belong- 
ing to  each  of  these.  Their  Bible,  therefore,  was  a  com- 
promise, while  it  retained  the  anti-Catholic  tone  peculiar 
to  all  those  Bibles  of  which  it  was  a  development. 

These  Bibles,  one  and  all,  had  been  prepared  for  the 
purpose  of  rendering  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  the 
Church,  her  worship  and  her  ministers,  odious  to  the  peo- 
ple of  England.  And  special  care  had  been  taken  by 
their  authors  to  so  distort  the  meaning  of  the  original 
wherever  it  was  possible,  that  the  simple  reader  must 
necessarily  believe,  or  at  least  suspect,  that  the  faith  of 
Catholics  either  could  not  be  established  by  the  Script- 
ure or  was  condemned  b}'  it.  These  perversions  of  the 
truth,  as  contained  in  the  Bible,  passed  into  King  James's 
version;  and  they  remain  there,  many  of  them,  to  this 
day;  and  may  be  found  even  in  the  latest  revision  which 
has  been  made  of  that  version.  From  the  first,  the 
purpose  of  Tvndale,  Coverdale,  and  all  who  followed  in 
their  wake,  was  to  twist  text  after  text  in  order  to  show 
that  Catholics  were  idolaters.  Even  the  royal  stripling 
Edward  VI.,  prompted  by  his  trainer,  disdained  not  to 


A  nd  EnglisJi  Protestant  Bible.  3 1 3 

take  part  in  the  unholy  and  uncharitable  work;  for  he 
collected  all  the  texts  he  could  find  against  idols,  and  in 
an  essa}^  on  the  subject  expressed  his  astonishment  "  that 
so  many  people  have  dared  to  commit  idolatry  by  viakijig 
and  adoring  images^  ^  What  wonder  that  a  proclamation 
was  issued  at  the  time  directing  that  all  images  be  de- 
stroyed ? ' 

With  every  government,  from  that  of  Henry  VIII. 
down  to  the  present  century  (that  of  Mary  excepted), 
against  them,  with  the  popular  Bible  against  them,  and 
with  public  feeling,  the  consequence  of  these  two  causes, 
against  them,  need  we  be  surprised  at  the  hue  and  cry 
of  which  Catholics  have  been  the  object  for  so  many 
ages  in  England.  Their  enemies  of  all  sects  and  parties 
then  argued  against  them  after  this  fashion — a  fashion 
as  simple  as  it  was  successful. 

Idolaters  are  not  to  be  tolerated. 

But  Catholics  are  idolaters. 

Therefore  Catholics  are  not  to  be  tolerated. 

To  most  people  the  Major  proposition  would  appear 
self-evident.  In  fact,  it  is  plainly  laid  down  in  Deut.  xiii. 
6-17.  The  Minor  was  demonstrated  by  innumerable 
texts  in  the  Protestant  (not  Jewish)  Bible,  like  Ex.  xx.  4. 
Lev.  xxxvi.  i,  Deut.  xxvii.  15,  where  it  is  forbidden  by 
God  to  make  graven  and  molten  images,  and  the  maker 
of  such  images  is  cursed.  Now  Catholics  confessedly 
not  only  make,  but  worsJiip  such  images,  and  even  pro- 
fess that  the  worship  of  images,  or,  to  use  their  own 
words,  the  cidtns  imaginum,  is  a  part  of  their  religion.  It 
follows  therefore  by  all  the  rules  of  logic  that  Catholics 
are  idolaters,  and  as  such  are  to  be  punished  as  directed 
in  Deut.  xiii.,  of  at  least,  if  they  do  not  conform  to  the 
worship  established  by  act  of  Parliament,  that  they 
should  be  exterminated,  as  under  Henry  VIII.,  Edward 
VI.,  Queen  Elizabeth,  Cromwell,  etc.,  by  fines,  confisca- 

'  Bossuet's  Variations,  Vol.  i.,  p.  264.  3 '3 

■^  Lingard,  Hist,  of  England.  Vol.  v..  p.  129 


314  The  Cajion  of  the  Old  Testament 

tion,  exile,  imprisonment,    the  gibbet,  and  the   heads- 
man's axe. 

While  wrestling  with  this  sj^llogism,  the  Catholics  of 
the  time  may  or  may  not  have  discussed  the  Major  pro- 
position ;  at  all  events,  in  the  issue  forced  upon  them  it 
was  immaterial.  But  they  stoutly  and  successfully  de- 
nied the  Minor,  as  they  do  still.  First,  because  the  word 
worship  (cultus),  though  sometimes  improperly  used  to 
express  the  honor  due  to  God,  is  very  commonly  em- 
ployed to  signify  the  respect  paid  to  a  creature.  Thus 
in  the  AngHcan  marriage  service  the  bridegroom  says 
to  his  bride,  "  with  my  body  I  thee  ivorshipT  And  the 
civil  magistrate  is  addressed  in  England  with  the  word 
"  your  zvorship  "  or  "  Right  ivorshipfiil^'  this  last  sign  of 
respect  being  sometimes  paid  even  to  women  of  exalted 
rank.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  word  zuorship  is  used, 
when  its  object  is  holy  images  or  God's  saints,  as  the 
Council  of  Trent,  '  the  highest  authority  in  the  CathoHc 
Church,  has  taught.  Second,  because,  to  remove  all 
ambiguity  on  the  subject,  our  theologians  distinguish 
three  kinds  oizvorship: — Latvia,  the  divine  worship  due 
to  God  alone,  and  of  which  no  mere  creature  is  worthy. 
To  offer  this  worship  to  any  creature  is  idolatry  (Latria 
of  idols).  Dulia,  that  inferior  worship  offered  to  a 
creature,  as  the  saints,  their  relics  or  images,  or  any 
person,  on  account  of  his  virtues,  office,  etc.  It  was  this 
which  Josue  offered  to  the  angel.  ^  And  Hyperdiilia, 
a  higher  kind  of  that  dulia  with  which  the  saints  are 
honored,  and  to  which  the  Mother  of  God  as  the  hoHest 
of  all  creatures  is  alone  entitled.  Catholics  are  there- 
fore not  idolaters  because  they  worship  holy  images ; 
since,  while  doing  so,  it  is  not  latria  but  dulia  they  offer 
to  those  objects.  To  kiss  the  Bible  or  swear  by  it  is 
dulia,  and  what  Protestant  scruples  to  worship  God's 
holy  word  in  this  way,  or  would  not  treat  as  an  insult 

1   Sessio  XXV.  '^  Josue  v.  14. 


A  nd  English  Protestant  Bible.  3 1 5 

or  a  slander  the  charge  that  his  act  is  idolatry  ?  Be- 
sides, the  veneration  paid  by  Catholics  to  holy  images 
is  offered  to  God  as  its  ultimate  object— God,  without 
whom  nothing  would  be  holy  or  worthy  of  worship.— 
Third,  Cathohcs  deny  the  Minor  proposition,  because  it 
is  not  alone  infamously  slanderous,  but  flagrantly  blas- 
phemous ;  for  it  insults  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  author  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures,  as  well  as  calumniates  Catholics 
themselves.  This  is  retorting  the  argument  with  a  ven- 
geance. But  the  proof  is  at  hand,  and  is  now  submit- 
ted, as  the  first  instance  in  which  King  James's  translat- 
ors,- following  the  bad  example  of  Tyndale  and  Co., 
perverted  the  meaning  of  the  Bible  to  establish  a  false- 
hood and  perpetuate  a  calumny. 

No  I.— In  Exod.  XX.  4,  xxxi.  4,  Lev.  xix.  4,  xxvi.  i,  Deut. 
xxvii.  15,  and  dozens  of  other  places,  the  royal  translat- 
ors interpolated  or  retained  image  or  images,  which 
they  knew  right  well  was  not  in  the  original.  For  in- 
stance, the  original  of  the  verse  last  named  is,  as  literally 
rendered,  "Cursed  is  the  man  who  makes  ^graven  or  a 
molten— tV^sit  two  words  expressing  exactly  and  respec- 
tively the  two  Hebrew  words  pesel  and  massecah,  and 
being  correctly  represented  in  the  Septuagint  hy  ghtpton 
and  choneuton,  and  in  the  Vulgate  by  sculptile  and  confla- 
tile.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say,  that  the  authors  of  the 
Septuagint,  at  least,  were  in  a  position  to  ascertain  the 
sense  of  the  original  far  better  than  it  was  possible  for 
the  Anglican  translators  to  do.  The  former,  living  in 
the  third  century  before  Christ,  had  the  use  of  much 
older  and  more  varied  manuscripts.  They  were  all  Jews, 
and  all,  of  course,  competent  Hebrew  scholars,  while  the 
latter,  whatever  their  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  were  re- 
stricted to  a  class  of  manuscripts  modified  after  a  Rabbini- 
cal archetype,  which  can  be  traced  no  further  back  than 
the  first  century, '  the  oldest  of  said  manuscripts  being 

1   Smith,  The  Old  Test,  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  74,  75- 


3 1 6  The  Cano7i  of  the  Old  Testament 

dated  A.  D.  916,  '  and  all  of  them  originating  with  and 
modified  by  the  Masoretic  doctors. 

Well  would  it  have  been  for  the  credit  of  our  Anglican 
translators  had  they  in  the  texts  referred  to,  and  indeed 
in  many  others,  followed  the  Greek  and  Latin  versions, 
and  left  the  words  sculpt  He  and  con  flat  ilc  just  as  they 
found  them,  or  if  not,  anglicized  them  by  sculpture  and 
casting,  terms  quite  intelligible  to  English  readers.  No 
doubt  they  could  and  should  have  adopted  the  "■  a  grav- 
en or  a  molten  tiling"  of  the  Douay  Bible,  or,  if  they  dis- 
dained to  copy  the  rendering  of  Catholic  scholars, 
though  that  rendering  i-eproduced  exactly  in  English 
what  was  expressed  in  the  Hebrew,  they  might  have 
written  "  a  graven  or  a  molten  figure,  or  emblem,  or  ob- 
ject, or  representation.  But  so  fastidious  were  the}-  in 
the  choice  of  words  whenever  the  text  referred  to  idol- 
atry, that  in  the  whole  range  of  the  English  language 
they  could  find  but  one  adapted  to  their  taste.  No  one 
can  blame  them  for  endeavoring  to  fill  the  hiatus. 
Catholics  had  already  filled  it  with  "  thing,"  a  word 
which  left  the  sense  of  the  original  undecided,  just  as  it 
had  been  left  by  the  inspired  writer.  For  a  translator 
has  no  right  to  commit  a  writer,  whose  work  he  under- 
takes to  reproduce  in  another  language,  to  an  idea 
which  that  writer  has  not  expressed.  And  this  rule  is 
to  be  closely  followed,  indeed,  admits  of  no  exception, 
when  a  translator  assumes  the  duty  of  making  known 
to  others  what  God  has  written  in  a  language  not  un- 
derstood by  them. 

But  our  Protestant  translators  of  the  Hebrew  Bible 
thought  otherwise,  at  least  they  acted  otherwise.  For 
they  gave  their  readers  to  understand  that  the  inspired 
writer  had  written  image,  where  he  had  written  nothing 
of  the  kind,  although  he  had  in  his  language  a  good 
equivalent.     Thus,  when  wishing   to  express  the    idea 

'   Pref.  to  last  Rev.  of  King  James's  Bible,  note. 


And  EnglisJi  Protestant  Bible.  317 

conveyed  by  image,  he  had  already  written  tselem.'     vSo, 
although  the}' had  in  their  own  language  several  synony- 
mous words,  they  rejected  them  all  for  image,  that  being 
the  only  one  by  which,  with  the  aid  of  a  falsified  text, 
they  hoped  to  convict  of  idolatry  the  Catholics,  on  ac- 
count of  the  veneration  these  cherished  for  sacred  images. 
And    every  time    the    translators    inserted    that    word, 
where  another  would  have  served  as  well  and  far  better; 
and  where  the  inspired  pensman  had  not  written  it,  they 
knew  right  well  that  the  covering  of  the  tabernacle  con- 
tained "  interwoven  images  of  cJiernbim  ;  "  and  that  its  en- 
trance "  was  closed  by  a  splendid  curtain,  in  which  figures 
were  woven,"  while  ''figures  of  cJierubim  were  woven  in 
the    curtain    which    separated    the  sanctuary  from  the 
holy  of  holies;  "  °  and  that  over  the  ark  of  the  covenant 
there  "  were  two  cherubim."  '      They  knew,  too,  that 
God    had    directed    that  a  brazen    serpent  *  should  be 
erected,  at  the  sight  of  which  image  those  bitten  by  ser- 
pents were  to  be  cured.     They  were  also  well  aware 
that  in  God's  holy  temple  at  Jerusalem,  besides  the  im- 
mense images  of  the  two  cherubim  over  the  ark,  there 
were  several  other  such  images,  and  even  images  oi  oxen, 
lions,  etc.  ^     Of  all  this  the  English  Protestant  translat- 
ors of  the  Bible  were  fully  cognizant.       Yet,  wherever 
they  met  with  the  Hebrew  equivalent  for  graven  and 
molten  in  passages  forbidding  the  use  of  such  material 
for  idolatrous  purposes,  they  take  care  to  add  the  word 
image — no  doubt  presuming,  that  their  simple  readers; 
unable  to  perceive  that,  while  idolatrous  images  were 
forbidden  in  one  part  of  the  Bible,  images  connected  with 
the  worship  of  the  true  God  were  permitted  in  another: 
and,  perhaps  incapable,  without  previous  instruction,  of 
distinguishing  between  the  two  classes  of  iniages,  would 

'  Gen.  i.  26.  See  A  Lapide's  Com. 

-  Kitto's  Cycl.  (Tabernacle).  '  Ibid.  Ex.  xxxvii.  7.     317 

"•  Num.  xxi.  9.  5  III.  Kings  vi.  vii. 


3i8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

rise  from  the  perusal  of  the  first  part  of  the  Bible  with 
the  conviction  that  the  use  of  images  for  any  purpose 
whatever  and  under  all  possible  circumstances  was  sim- 
ply idolatrv,  and  that  the  class  of  so-called  Christians 
known  as  Catholics,  but  known  also  as  worshippers  of 
images,  were  after  all  nothing  but  idolaters.  That  con- 
viction, in  fact,  was  actually  produced,  and  has  been  long 
cherished  by  a  large  class  of  Protestants.  Indeed,  it  ma}' 
be  doubted  whether  it  has  been  universally  discarded 
by  them.  At  all  events,  its  propagation,  if  not  its  origin, 
is  to  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  the  men  who  wrote  that 
English  version,  which  has  circulated  among  Protestants 
since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

An  apologist  might  plead  in  behalf  of  those  men  their 
early  training,  the  first  lesson  of  which  inculcated  the 
belief  that  Catholic  worship  was  i-ank  idolatr)'  ;  the 
state  of  public  opinion,  according  to  which,  so  far  as 
Catholics  were  concerned,  persecution  was  at  worst  but 
an  act  of  stern  justice,  and  toleration  an  unmerited  and 
impolitic  privilege ;  and  the  general  circulation  of  false 
and  anti-Catholic  Bibles,  from  whose  text  it  would  not 
have  been  safe  for  the  translators  to  have  deviated  ver}- 
much. 

To  all  this  there  is  a  ready  and  satisfactory  answer. 
No  combination  of  circumstances  can  excuse,  much  less 
justify,  a  wilful  and  systematic  misrepresentation  of 
what  is  contained  in  the  holy  Scriptures.  And  this  is 
the  offence  with  which  King  James's  translators  have 
been  charged  all  along,  ever  since  their  Bible  was  pub- 
lished— a  serious  offence,  no  matter  from  what  quarter 
it  proceeds,  but  particularl}'  so  when  committed  by  a 
prominent  body  of  Christian  ministers.  That  any  of 
them  ever  formally  plead  guilty  to  this  grave  charge 
does  not  appear.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  official  chiefs 
in  the  Anglican  communion,  those  charged  with  the  care 
of  the  Anglican  version,  have  more  than  once  and  in 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  319 

several  instances  corrected  in  it  errors  which  were  the 
result  not  only  of  human  frailt}'  but  of  bad  faith.  For 
to  nothing  but  bad  faith  can  be  attributed  the  insertion, 
without  any  reason  or  authorit}*,  of  the  particular  word 
image  m  almost  every  passage  prohibiting  the  practice  of 
idolatry.  Yet  all  such  passages  remain  to  this  day  (wnth 
one  exception,  to  be  immediately  indicated)  just  as  the 
translatoi'S  left  them,  as  if  those  who  make  use  of  this 
version,  and  who  alone  can  make  the  necessary  cor- 
rections, were  determined  to  retain  as  long  as  possible 
the  dishonest  advantage  resulting  from  a  standing  and 
glaring  perversion  of  the  word  of  God.  Now  it  was 
evident  to  the  authors  of  said  versions,  as  it  is  evident 
to  every  reader  of  the  original  or  of  any  of  the  an- 
cient versions  of  that  original,  that  it  was  not  a  mere 
image,  however  or  of  whatever  made,  that  was  forbidden 
by  God,  but  any  thitig  or  object  whatever,  however  made 
or  fashioned,  or  "  the  likeness  of  any  thing  that  is  in 
heaven  above,  or  in  the  earth  beneath,"  or  "  of  those 
things  that  are  in  the  waters  under  the  earth,"  'if  that 
thing  or  things,  though  a  stock  or  a  stone,  were  made  use 
of  to  be  adored — the  use  of  such  thing  or  tiling's,  be  it 
any  image  or  likeness  whatever,  being  permitted  when 
not  employed  for  idolatrous  purposes.  That  there 
might  be  no  mistake  about  the  matter,  the  Scriptures  in- 
formed the  Anglican  translators,  as  they  informed  all 
who  read  them,  that  Moses  and  Solomon,  inspired  by 
God,  made  no  scruple  of  introducing,  the  one  into  the 
tabernacle,  the  other  into  the  temple,  many  things  inter- 
dicted in  Ex.  XX.,  thus  indicating  that  the  use  of  such 
things,  though  forbidden  as  objects  of  idolatry,  was 
approved  by  God  when  employed  as  adjuncts  of  his 
own  religion.  This  evident  truth  is  further  confirmed 
by  the  fact  that  eidolon  (idol)  is  sometimes  'used  as  an 
equivalent  ior graven  and  molten  bv  the  LXX,  who  certain- 

1  Infra  p  322.  ^  Exod.  xx.  4.  5.  ^  Ibid.;  Is.  xxx,  22, 


320  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

\\  understood  what  was  implied  in  the  corresponding 
Hebrew  words  much  better  than  the  Anglican  transla- 
tors, who  had  the  Greek  interpretation  before  them,  and 
on  whom  this  broad  hint  of  these  old  Alexandrian  Jews 
should  not  have  been  lost,  for  clearl)-  they  thus  meant 
to  remind  all  future  interpreters,  whether  ro\-al  or 
plebeian,  that  not  alone  images,  but  all  things  w^hatsoever 
were  forbidden,  onh',  however,  when  they  were  used  as 
idols.  But  the  royal  translators  were  not  disposed  to  lis- 
ten to  reason,  justice,  or  truth.  The  old  Chuixh,  which 
they  had  deserted  to  share  in  the  plunder  which  fol- 
lowed her  suppression,  or  to  indulge  propensities  on 
which  she  imposed  restraint,  still  bleeding  as  she  w^as 
from  the  cruel  wounds  inflicted  bv  the  fangs  of  the 
tigress  Elizabeth,  must  be  maligned.  And  a  traves- 
ty of  the  Bible  is  prepared,  as  the  most  effectual  means 
of  accomplishing  that  iniquitous  purpose.  Therefore, 
although  it  is  forbidden  to  adore  a  stick  or  a  stone,  sculp- 
tured or  not,  a  Inmp  of  native  ore,  or  any  mass  of  mineral, 
wrought  or  unwrought,  cast  or  uncast,  or  any  object 
in  heaven,  or  earth,  or  under  the  earth,  it  is  only,  say  the 
English  interpreters  in  their  spurious  Bible,  an  image 
that  is  forbidden;  their  wicked  purpose  being  to  convict 
the  down-trodden  Catholics  of  idolatry,  by  the  testi- 
mony of  what  they  proposed  as  the  pure  word  of  God  ; 
because  images  were  found  in  churches  devoted  to 
Catholic  worship,  just  as  they  were  found  on  the  taber- 
nacle erected  by  Moses  and  in  the  temple  built  by 
Solomon. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


The  English  Protestant  Bible,  Continued. 

When  in  1870  it  was  resolved,  at  the  convocation  of 
Canterbury,  to  undertake  a  new  revision  of  King  James's 
Bible,  as  a  matter  urgentW  demanded  by  those  many 
errors,  offensive  to  Chrjstian  piety  which,  whether  wil- 
ful or  not,  notwithstanding  many  previous  revisions,  still 
made  that  production,  as  all  intelligent  readers  knew, 
not  an  English  version  but  an  Anglican  mistranslation  of 
the  Bible  :  it  was  hoped  that  many,  and, at  least,the  most 
glaring  perversions, which  polluted  its  pages,  would  be 
removed  ;  and  that  after  a  period  of  nearly  three  cen- 
turies Anglican  ministers  would  at  last  provide  English 
speaking  Protestants  with  a  Bible  that  would  at  all 
events  convey  the  substantial  sense  of  the  original.  The 
revisers  must  have  been  well  aware,  that  the  transla- 
tors, swayed  by  their  dogmatic  prejudices,  had  through- 
out appended  to  graven  and  molten  the  word  image,  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  confirm  their  readers  in  the 
absurd  and  malignant  belief  that  Catholics  were  idola- 
ters. This  slander,  and  the  unholy  attempt  to  substan- 
tiate it  by  perverting  the  word  of  God,  had  been  exposed 
again  and  again  by  competent  critics,  who  had  revnewed 
the  work  of  the  translators.  Yet  the  revisers,  as  if  loath 
to  surrender  an  advantage  obtained  by  such  infamous 
and  impious  means,  seem  to  have  allowed  all  the 
passages  prostituted  to  a  purpose  so  vile  and  dishonor- 
able to  remain  as  they  found  them,  with  one  solitary 
exception,  which  occurs  in  Lev.  xxvi.  i.     That  verse  in 


322  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

the  original  contains  tlie  word  MatzebaJi — Stclen  in  Greek, 
Titulos  in  Latin, — the  meanin":  of  all  these  words  beinof 
in  plain  English  eoluvin  or  pillar.  But  the  translators 
had  rendered  it  a  standing  image,  and  in  their  version 
it  remains  so  to  this  day,  a  standing  image  of  their  malig- 
nity against  the  Catholic  Church  and  of  the  fraud  prac- 
tised by  them  on  all  whom  they  persuaded  to  receive 
their  version  as  the  Bible.  The  revisers  in  this  instance, 
however, — why  ?  it  is  hard  to  say, — thought  fit  to  employ 
the  correct  English  word,  and  therefore  substituted  for 
the  base  counterfeit  issued  from  the  royal  mint  the  gen- 
uine equivalent  of  the  Hebrew.  So  that  in  the  new 
revision  of  the  Protestant  Old  Testament  a  Protestant 
will  now  read  pillar  instead  of  standing  image  as  before. 
But  why  did  not  the  revisers  do  in  every  other  case  of 
the  kind  what  they  did  in  this?  Or  did  they  retain  every- 
where else  the  foisted  ^v^ord  image,  in  order  that  such  of 
their  readers  as  were  unable  to  consult  the  original  text 
in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  or  some  of  the  ancient  versions 
thereof,  might  still  be  persuaded  by  the  omission  of  the 
revisers  to  correct  the  cognate  falsifications,  that  the 
charge  of  idolatry  had  been  proved  against  the  Catholic 
Church,  as  almost  all  the  texts  cited  by  Protestants  for 
the  purpose  have  been  left  as  they  stood  by  a  body  of 
critics  selected  from  among  the  foremost  Protestant 
scholars  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  for  the 
purpose  of  correcting  all  mistakes  in  the  English  Prot- 
estant Bible. 

The  authors  of  the  English  Protestant  version  have  in 
several  passages  mistranslated  the  word  Sheol,  by  ren- 
dering it  sometimes  grave,  sometimes  pit,  although  at 
other  times  hell.  '  The  LXX  translate  it  Hades,  and  theVul- 
gate  Infernus — these  words  generallv  meaning  hell,  or  the 
abode  of  departed  spirits  not  in  heaven  ;  although  in  the 
Scriptures  the  Hebrew,  as  well  as  the  Greek  and  Latin 

1  Ptef  (oRevisio}iof  O.  T. 


And  Eiig/ish  Protestant  Bible.  323 

word,  has  often  been  taken  to  signify  grave  or  death. 
But  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew,  as  well  as  of  the. other 
two  words,  may  be  generally  inferred  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty from  the  context.  This  is  particularly  the  case 
in  the  first  passage  where  S/icol  occurs,  namely,  Gen. 
xxxvii.  35.  Thus  Jacob,  being  shown  the  bloody  coat 
of  Joseph,  exclaims  in  his  grief :  "  An  evil  wild  beast  hath 
eaten  him,  a  beast  hath  devoured  Joseph.  ...  I  will  go 
down  to  my  son  into  Shcol  (hell),  mourning."  Jacob 
supposed  that  Joseph  was  dead,  and  his  body  eaten  by 
some  wild  beast.  All  the  circumstances  prove,  that 
when  the  former  said  he  would  "go  down  to  "  the  latter 
"into  Shcor'  he  must  have  meant  he/l.  For,  by  going 
to  Joseph,  he  could  not  have  meant  Joseph's  body,  then 
(if  not  already  digested)  in  the  stomach  of  some  "  evil 
beast  "  (as  he  supposed),  and  not  in  a  grave.  By  "  going 
to  Joseph"  he  therefore  intended  to  say  "  to  the  soul  of 
Joseph."  But  where  was  the  soul  of  Joseph  ?  Not  in  the 
orave:  no,  nor  in  heaven.'  Where  then?  Tn  hell,  or,  if 
you  please,  in  the  abode  of  departed  spirits.  But  what 
place  was  that  ?  Not  the  Jielloi  the  damned,  but  a  place 
distinct  from  it,  as  well  as  from  heaven ;  for  no  one  will 
say  that  Jacob  supposed  that  the  soul  of  his  son  was  yet 
in  heaven,  much  less  among  the  eternally  reprobate. 
Jacob,  therefore,  believed  in  the  existence  of  a  place  in 
the  other  world,  designed  as  a  residence  for  those  holy 
souls  which,  saved  by  their  faith  and  good  works  from 
the  doom  of  the  wicked,  were  patiently  waiting  until 
heaven  should  be  opened  to  them  by  the  expected  Re- 
deemer. Their  abode  is  known  among  Catholics  as 
Lvnbo,  or  Abraham" s  bosom."  Lest  this  evident  conclu- 
sion might  be  drawn  from  the  text,  and  the  existence  of 
more  conditions  of  being  than  two  in  the  future  world 
might  thus  be  established,  together  with  the  probability 
that    there  is  such  a  place    there    as    purgatory.  King 

1  Vide  T"lin  iii.  13  ;  F-ph.  iv.  8.  -  A  Lapidc  on  l.ukc  xvi.  22. 


324  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

James's  translators  have  represented  Sheol  as  the  grave, 
as  if  Jacob's  language  were  absurd,  although  in  other 
texts  thej  had  no  hesitation  in  rendering  Sheol  by  the 
word  hell.  The  latest  revisers,  however,  though  they 
seem  to  have  perceived  the  nonsense  which  the  transla- 
tors had  put  in  the  mouth  of  Jacob,  left  grave  in  the 
text,  and,  probably  to  save  their  own  credit,  placed 
Sheol  in  the  margin,  remarking  as  they  did  so  that  Sheol 
is  "  the  name  of  the  abode  of  the  dead."  But  that  is 
hell,  for  in  hell  as  in  heaven  there  is  more  than  one  man- 
sion. This  truth,  however,  the  Revisers  had  not  the  can- 
dor to  admit,  and  lest  their  readers  might  do  so,  allowed 
a  word  which  they  knew  to  be  false  and  ridiculous  to 
remain  still  in  the  translation  which  thev  undertook  to 
correct. 

These  few  examples,  out  of  many  of  the  same  sort, 
will  enable  the  reader  to  form  a  correct  opinion  regard- 
ing the  moral  character  of  the  motives, under  which  the 
English  translators  of  the  Protestant  Old  Testament 
discharged  the  duty  assigned  them  by  his  most  gracious 
majesty  King  James  L  Their  version  is  full  of  errors, 
resulting  not  only  from  Avant  of  knowledge,  but  from 
the  absence  of  all  intention  to  present  fairly  the  meaning- 
of  all  such  texts, as  bore  in  anv  way  on  points  of  contro- 
versy between  themselves  and  their  Catholic  fellow- 
subjects.  Several  of  these  errors;  after  others,  which 
had  long  done  duty  in  advancing  the  Protestant  cause, 
had  been  removed;  have  disappeared  in  the  recent 
revision,  though  they  still  hold  their  position  in  the 
yet  current  old  Protestant  Bible.  But  that  revision 
seems  deficient,  not  only  in  thoroughness  but  even  in 
honesty.  For  in  any  honest  revision  the  meaning  of 
Sheol,  for  example,  would  be  decided  not  by  dogmatic 
views,  but  by  the  context.  Now  let  us  see  what  sort  of 
a  New  Testament  the  Anglican  translators  prepared  for 
English  Protestant  readers. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  325 

The  character  of  that  translation  wliich  was  made  of 
the  New  Testament  under  the  auspices  of  King  James 
1.,  and  published  in  161 1,  is  fairly  enough  described  by 
its  most  recent  revisers,  when,  after  remarking  in  their 
preface  to  it,  that  "  That  translation  was  the  work  of 
many  hands  and  of  several  generations,"  they  naively 
acknowledge  that  "  The  foundation  was  laid  by  Wil- 
liam Tyndale.  His  translation  of  the  New  Testament 
was  the  true  primary  version.  The  versions  that  fol- 
lowed were  either  substantially  reproductions  of  Tyn- 
dale's  translation  in  its  final  shape,  or  revisions  of 
versions  that  had  been  themselves  almost  entirely  based 
on  it."  Now  we  have  seen  '  that  Tyndale's  translation, 
so  far  as  it  differed  from  the  Vulgate,  was  Luther's 
German  New  Testament  done  into  the  Anglo-Saxon  of 
that  time.  Since  it  thus  appears  that  the  English 
Protestant  New  Testament  is  mainly  Martin  Luther's 
New  Testament  reproduced  in  another  language,  and 
already  discussed  in  the  present  work,  it  almost  seems 
a  w'aste  of  time  to  cull  a  few  out  of  the  many  character- 
istics wdiich  distinguish  that  reproduction,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  showing  that  it  is  not  unAvorthy  the  fallen  monk 
from  whom  it  derives  its  origin.  Yet,  inasmuch  as  the 
fact,  that  it  has  been  alwa3S  and  is  now  received  bv 
English  speaking  Protestants  in  the  Old  and  New^  World 
as  a  faithful,  indeed  the  only,  "  authorized  version  "  of 
the  Greek  original,  is  nothing  less  than  a  challenge  to 
all  other  English  speaking  people,  a  few  remarks  re- 
garding its  claims  ma)^  not  be  inopportime.  These 
remarks  will  be  restricted  to  but  a  few  out  of  many 
defects,  which,  it  is  believed,  prove  King  James's  New 
Testament  to  be  not  onl}'  an  incorrect  but  a  dishonest 
version  of  the  sacred  volume,  which  it  claims  to  repre- 
sent. 

I.  It  has  just  been  seen  how  profuse  the  "authorized 

'   Supra.,  p.  304. 


326  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

version,"  like  all  the  earlier  Eno^lish  Protestant  Bibles, 
from  which  it  has  descended,  is  in  the  use  of  image, 
which,  hardly  ever  in  season,  but  generally  out  of  season, 
it  thrusts  into  the  reluctant  text  of  the  Old  Testament. 
This  generous  prodigality  of  so  serviceable  an  interpo- 
lation is  less  marked,  at  least  now,  in  the  New  Testament 
of  that  version.  Yet  even  there  may  be  detected  traces 
of  the  lavish  hand  with  which  it  has  been  dispensed  in 
the  Old.  Take  for  example  Acts  xix.  35,  where  the 
original,  as  literally  rendered,  is:  ''What  man  is  there 
that  knoweth  not  that  the  city  of  the  Ephesians  is  a 
worshipper  of  the  great  Diana,  and  of  the  fallen  from 
Jupiter}''  {(jYQek,  Diopetojis  ;  Y wX^^te,  Jovisqiie  prolis  \ 
Douay  Bible,  Jupiter  s  offspring.)  The  last  words  of  the 
text  in  the  "  authorized  version  "  are  :  "  and  of  the  image 
Avhich  fell  down  from  Jupiter,"  although  image  is  not  at 
all  expressed  in  the  original,  and  even  Protestant  writers  ' 
often  call  the  idol  worshipped  by  the  Ephesians  a  statue 
or  2i  figure.  But  as  image  had  proved  itself  so  useful  a 
word  already,  the  preference  was  given  to  it  after  it  had 
been  decided  to  add  to  the  text.  And  the  revisers 
allowed  that  word  to  retain  the  place  into  which  it  had 
been  foisted,  as  if  they,  too,  could  occasionally  stoop 
to  the  base  means  employed  by  the  translators  for 
traducing  the  worship  of  their  Catholic  forefathers. 
Another  outrageous  falsification  of  the  text  perpetrated 
by  the  Protestant  translators,  and  for  the  same  unholy 
purpose,  occurs  in  Romans  xi.  4,  where  the  Greek,  as 
honestly  rendered,  says :  "  I  have  left  to  m3^self  seven 
thousand  men,  that  have  not  bent  the  knee  to  Baal."'' 
Here  again  was  a  glorious  chance  for  King  James's  trans- 
lators, and  they  utilized  it  by  substituting  "  to  the  image 
of  Baal"  for  the  two  last  words.  This  was  too  much 
even  for  the  revisers ;  so,  to  their  credit  be  it  spoken,  they 

'  Kitto's  Cycl.:  Artemis,  Ephesus. 


And  Euglisli  Protestant  Bible.  327 

quietly    condemned    the    shameless    dishonesty   of    the; 
translators,  b}'  restoring  the  true  rendering. 

2.  Now  let  the  reader  who  has  some  knowledge  of 
Greek  look  at  Mat.  xix.  11.  There  he  will  find  words 
pronounced  thus,  "  on  panics  chorousi  ton  logon  touton  air 
hois  didotai,  "  and  will  agree  that  the  Douay  Bible  re- 
produces them  faithfully,  and  that  the  following  ver- 
sion, substantially  identical  with  that  of  the  Douay  Bible, 
is  a  word-for-word  rendering  of  the  text, — "  All  men  do 
not  take  this  word,  but  they  to  whom  it  is  given."  In 
the  English  Protestant  or  "  authorized  version  it  is : 
"  All  men  cannot  receive  this  saying,  save  they  to  whom 
it  is  given,"  the  variation  arising  from  the  meaning 
given  to  chorousi.  But  about  that  meaning  there  is  not 
even  room  for  controversy.  For  chorco,  of  which  cJioronsi 
in  the  text  is  the  indicative  mood,  third  person  plural, 
means  primarily  to  make  or  give  room  or  place,  as  in  Mark 
ii.  2  ;  then,  as  a  consequence,  to  take  or  receive,  as  in 
Matt.  xix.  II,  II.  Cor.  vii.  2  ;  and  to  contain  or  hold,  as  in 
John  ii.  6.,  xxi.  25.  Now,  bring  the  two  versions  into 
juxtaposition,  that  they  may  thus  be  more  convenientlv 
contrasted. 

Cathot  Tr \     "  ^^  "^^'^  ^°  "^^  '■^^^  '■^^'■^  word,  but  they  to  whom  it  is 

\    given." 

p  <     "All  men  cannot  receive  this  saying,  save  they  to  whom  it 

\    is  given." 

Thus  it  is  seen  that,  except  as  between  do  not  and  can- 
not, the  two  versions  may  be  considered  substantially 
identical.  But  it  is  evident  that  between  do  not  and  can- 
not there  is  quite  a  difference.  The  former  expresses  an 
omission  to  act,  the  latter  a  want  of  ability  to  act.  Now 
let  the  Greek  grammarian  apply  his  rules,  and  he  will 
say  without  hesitation  that  on  panics  chorousi  me^ns  "all 
men  do  not  take  or  receive,"  and  that  by  no  principle  of 
interpretation  can  it  be  made  to  yield  "  all  men  cattfiot 
receive  or  take ; "  for,  whatever  else  is  implied  in  chorousi^ 


328  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testa inciU 

there  is  no  allusion  in  it  to  power  or  ability  ;  with  the 
negative  on  it  refers  solel}'  to  an  omission  to  act  or  to  do 
so  and  so.  Were  it  otherwise,  Our  Lord  (or  St.  Mat- 
thew, who  has  repeated  His  words),  in  the  next  verse, 
when  employing  f//f?r^,  would  not  have  used  in  conjunc- 
tion with  it  a  word  expressing  ability,  as  "  Ho  dunanienos 
chorein,  choreito,^' — "  He  that  can  take  let  him  take  it," — 
or,  as  the  Protestant  version  reads,  "  He  that  is  able  to 
receive  let  him  receive  it."  Indeed  if  King  James's 
scholars  have  rightly  interpreted  cJiorousi,  the  Greek  text 
last  cited  should  stand  thus,  "  Ho  chorei,  choreito,  "  for 
this  will  mean,  "  He  that  is  able  to  receive,  let  him  re- 
ceive." Finally,  these  royal  interpreters,  in  gratifying 
their  intolerant  instincts,  have  not  only,  as  we  have 
seen,  corrupted  the  text,  but  while  engaged  in  this  to 
them  congenial  work,  they  have  plainly  contradicted 
themselves.  For  they  say  that  in  the  first  text  choreo 
means  to  be  able  to  receive,  and  that  the  same  w^ord  in  the 
second  text  means  no  more  than  to  receive.  The  latest 
revision  of  the  English  Protestant  Bible  has  left  Matt, 
xix.  II  unchanged,  except  that  it  substitutes  the  but  of 
the  Rhemish  version  for  the  save  of  the  former. 

No  one  can  be  mistaken  as  to  the  motive  which 
prompted  the  falsification  of  the  sacred  text,  in  the  case 
just  referred  to.  The  authors  of  that  falsification  had 
read  Luther's  sermon  on  marriage,  or  had  adopted  the 
principles  proclaimed  in  that  and  other  scandalous  pro- 
ductions of  the  German  reformer.  By  nature  and  edu- 
cation, these  authors  were  therefore  opposed  to  clerical 
celibacy  and  the  continence  so  highly  commended  in 
the  Gospel  and  the  writings  of  St.  Paul.  But  was  it 
not  possible,  by  corrupting  the  sacred  text  as  Luther 
had  done,  to  show  that  the  Catholic  Church  was  in  er- 
ror in  these  as  well  as  other  points?  Those  who  wrote 
the  English  Protestant  version  of  the  Bible  thought  so. 
They  not  only  thought  so,  but  did  so.     And  thus,  up  to 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  329 

the  present  day,  the  New  Testament  which  they  pre- 
pared for  their  followers  represents,  as  we  have  just 
seen.  Our  Lord  Himself  teaching  a  doctrine  which  He 
condemned,  and  uttering  words  His  divine  lips  never 
pronounced. 

3.  A  similar  motive  has  led  to  a  similar  corruption  in 
I.   Cor.   vii.    9,   where,  according    to  the   original,   the 
Rhemish  version  has  "  But  if  they  do  not  contain  them- 
selves, let  them  marry,"  whereas  the  English  Protestant 
version  has  "  But  if  they  cannot  contain,  let  them  mar- 
ry."    Now,  cannot  here  is  as  unauthorized  as  it  is  in  the 
text  just  discussed  ;  it  is  a  sheer  interpolation,  and  noth 
ing  else ;  not  being  contained  in  that  auk  enkrateuontai 
of   the   original,    which    has   occasioned   the   variation 
between  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  versions  in  this 
instance.     For,  since  Liddell  and  Scott,  Oxford  Protes 
tant  scholars,  one  if  not  both  belonging  to  the  Anglican 
ministry,  and  therefore  to  Protestants  unobjectionable 
authorities,  state  in  their  Lexicon  that  enkrateuontai  is  a 
verb  "dep.  mid.,"  meaning  "to  exercise  self-control,  N. 
r.,"  and  since  the  word  in  the  Greek  New  Testament  is 
in  the  indicative  mood,  present  tense,  third  person  plu- 
ral, it  must  therefore,  according  to  Liddell  and  Scott, 
mean  "they  exercise  self-control;"  but  this  in  sense  is 
the  same  as  the  Catholic  version  with  the  oiik  (not)  of 
the  original — "  they  do  not  contain  themselves."    There 
is  therefore  no  room  for  the  Protestant  cannot  in  the 
text.    There  it  is  a  false  and  unauthorized  exotic.     These 
impious  attempts  to  pervert  the  meaning  ot  tht  Script- 
ures, as  well  as  the  unauthorized  restriction  put  in  I. 
Cor.  ix.  5  on  the  force  of  gnnaika,  '  which,  as  appears 
from  the  context,  means  a  zvoman,  not  a  wife,  as  the  Prot- 
estant  New   Testament    has   it,   convict   King    James's 
translators  of  a  deliberate  purpose  to  falsify  the  origi- 
nal, in  order  that  from  it  thus  falsified  they  might  draw 

'   Supra,  295. 


330  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

arguments  against  the  moral  principles  inculcated  by 
the  Church,  and  be  able  to  cite  Scriptural  texts  in  favor 
of  the  uxorious  proclivities  in  which  they  and  their 
ministerial  brethren  indulged  without  scruple.  The 
revisers  were  not  satisfied  with  the  text  under  discussion 
as  it  stood  in  the  "  authorized  version."  So  they  sub- 
stituted for  it  "  But  if  they  have  not  continency."  This, 
though  an  improvement,  falls  short  of  the  original,  im- 
plying as  it  does  that  the  ability  to  exercise  continency, 
self-control,  self-restraint,  has  been  withheld  from  some, 
whereas  the  original  clearly  enough  teaches  that  the 
omission  to  "contain  themselves"  results  not  from  a 
want  of  ability,  but  from  a  want  of  will. 

4.  The  necessity  of  Communion  under  both  kinds  was 
and  is  insisted  on  by  Protestants  of  all  denominations, 
who  were  also  unanimous  in  their  condemnation  of  the 
Church  for  administering  Communion  only  under  one 
kind.  But  it  was  felt  b}'  them  that  Scriptural  texts 
were  required  to  justify  this  novelty,  and  not  finding 
any  such  that  suited  their  purpose,  they  decided  on 
manufacturing  something  adapted  to  the  emergency. 
So,  by  a  slight  change  in  the  meaning  of  one  little  word 
consisting  of  but  one  little  letter,  they  succeeded  in  se- 
curing the  authority  of  St.  Paul  for  what  they  called 
"  the  use  of  the  cup."  This  feat  of  legerdemain  was 
performed  by  the  authors  of  the  Protestant  New  Tes- 
tament while  translating  I.  Cor.  xi.  27,  where  the  Cath- 
olic reads:  "Whosoever  shall  eat  this  bread  or  drink 
the  chalice,  etc."  Here  the  Protestant  translators,  un- 
deterred by  the  awful  majesty  of  God's  holy  word,  in- 
terpreted b}'  anei  the  Greek  word  signifying  or,  making 
the  text  read  thus:  "Whosoever  shall  eat  this  bread 
and  diX'wiV.  this  cup,  etc.,"  although  in  the  only  four  other 
places  where  the  same  Greek  disjunctive  certainly  oc- 
curs in  the  same  chapter,  they,  having  no  sinister  pur- 
pose to  serve,  had  already  rendered   the  word  by  or. 


Ayid  EnglisJi  Frottstant  Bible.  331 

The  revisers,  however,  in  this  instance,  have  corrected 
the  authorized  version  by  substituting  or  for  and,  thus 
practically  confessing  that  their  predecessors  hesitated 
not  to  corrupt  the  word  of  God  whenever  controver- 
sial considerations  tempted  them  to  do  so,  and  that 
every  educated  Protestant  throughout  the  world,  then 
and  since,  who  without  a  protest  read  these  corrup- 
tions has  shared  in  thp  sacrilege. 

5.  In  Luke  i.  72  occurs  another  perversion  perpetrated 
by  the  authors  of  the  English  Protestant  New  Testa- 
ment. The  words  in  the  Rhemish  New  Testament,  as 
usual,  coincide  with  the  original,  and  have  in  fact  been 
practically  adopted  by  the  revisers  of  the  "  authorized 
version."  For  the  purpose  of  comparison,  the  three 
renderings  are  here  presented  together. 

Rhemish  Translation, —  "  To  perform  mercy  to  our  fathers." 

Protestant  Translation,-,  j     " 'i)^  peffo™  the  mercy  promised  to  our 
'       \  fathers. 

Revision  of  same, —  "To  sliow  mercy  towards  our  fathers." 

Between  the  Rhemish  translators  and  the  revisers  in 
this  instance  the  difference  is  very  little,  yet  there  is  not 
complete  agreement  between  them,  because,  while  the 
former,  according  to  their  custom,  adhere  closely  to  the 
original  by  rendering  poicsai  literally,  and  thus  writing 
"to  perform,"  the  latter  interpret  the  same  word  b}^  "to 
show,"  a  sense  in  which  it  is  rai*ely,  if  ever,  found.  Yet 
as  "  to  show  mercy  "  is  practically  S)monymous  with  "  to 
perform  mercy,"  both  versions  may  be  considered  iden- 
tical ;  but  both  differ  very  materially  from  the  version 
of  King  James's  translators.  These  translators,  while 
engaged  on  their  task,  seem  to  have  kept  one  eye  on  the 
copy  before  them  and  the  other  on  the  Pope  ;  and  very 
likely  not  a  line,  nor  even  a  word,  was  written  by  them 
without  considering  beforehand  what  its  effect  would 
be  on  the  quarrel  between  England  and  Rome.  When 
they  came  to  the  above  text  they  must  have  paused  be- 


332  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

fore  proceeding  with  their  work.  For  the  text  was  one 
which,  if  rendered  literally,  no  one  could  read  without 
being  convinced,  or  at  least  suspecting,  that  the  "  fa- 
thers"  already  dead  needed  "mercy;"  and  that  "the 
Lord  God  of  Israel  "  '  was  prepared  "  to  perform  "  it  to 
them.  But  where  were  those  fathers  ?  Not  in  heaven, 
where  mercy  is  sw^allowed  up  in  joy.  And  assuredly 
not  in  the  hell  of  the  damned,  where  mercy  could  not 
reach  them.  They  must  therefore  have  been  in  a  place 
between  both,  or  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  What? 
In  Limbo  or  Purgatory  ?  Why,  certainly.  In  one  or 
the  other, — maybe  both,  according  to  their  condition  at 
death.  But  how  were  the  readers  of  the  "  authorized 
version  "  to  be  saved  from  such  a  conclusion  ?  Oh,  well, 
as  usual,  by  corrupting  the  text,  and  deftly  slipping  in 
the  word  "  promised  ;  "  as  if  the  assurance  of  mercy 
made  to  the  fathers  while  living  meant,  that  it  w^ould 
be  all  right  with  the  children,  after  the  mystery  of  re- 
demption should  be  consummated.  Is  not  this  plan  of 
getting  out  of  a  difficulty  worthy  of  the  men  w^ho  de- 
vised it?  Could  Cerinthus,  Marcion,  or  Tatian  have 
done  better? 

6.  Many  of  those  selected  by  royal  appointment  for 
preparing  a  Protestant  translation  of  the  Bible  were 
strongly  imbued  with  the  stern  principles  of  unmitigated 
Calvinism.  And  the  "  authorized  version  "  in  several 
passages  clearly  reflects  the  influence,  which  they  exer- 
cised in  shaping  its  contents.  Between  them  and  the 
more  conversative  Episcopalians  the  work  of  inter- 
preting was  a  game  of  give  and  take,  and  the  result, 
as  already  remarked,  has  been  a  compromise.  Each 
party  seems  to  have  experienced  considerable  difficul- 
ty, not  only  in  overcoming  the  opposition  of  the  other 
to  certain  renderings,  but  in  reconciling  the  Bible 
with  its  own  creed.     But  both,  by  the  tactics  they  em- 

'■  Verse  68. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  335 

ployed  on  the  language  of  the  Bible,  and  by  the  convic- 
tion that  their  task,  if  ever  completed,  demanded  mutu- 
al concessions,  were  equal  to  all  such  occasions.  Thus 
every  problem  that  presented  itself  in  the  course  of  their 
labors  was  solved  to  the  satisfaction  of  their  credu- 
lous and  confiding  followers,  by  inserting  a  word  here, 
changing  another  there,  and  generally  treating  the  Bible 
as  a  volume  whose  contents,  when  they  condemned, 
should  be  compelled  to  sanction  Protestant  principles, 
and  when  they  favored  Catholic  belief  should  be  so  dis- 
torted as  to  make  it  appear  that  that  belief  was  opposed 
to  the  Word  of  God.  We  have  had  several  examples  of 
this  already.  Here  is  another.  It  occurs  in  Hebrews  x. 
38.  That  the  corruption  which  the  English  Protestant 
translators  have  perpetrated  in  this  instance  may  be 
clearly  apprehended,  the  Catholic  version  and  Protes- 
tant version,  with  the  last  revisi(Mi,  are  here  placed  side 
by  side. 

S     "  My  just  man  liveth  by  faith,  but  if  he  withdraw  him- 
Cath.  Version,—  j  ^^^jf^  ^j^  ^^^i  gh^ll  not  delight  in  him." 

<S     "  The  just  shall  live  by  faith,   but  if  any  man   draw 
Prot.  Version,—  ^  ^^^^^j^^  ^^y  ^^^^  ^^^\\  ^ave  no  pleasure  in  him." 

(     "My  righteo^is  one    shall  live  by  faith.     And  if  he 
Revision,—  -^  shrink  back,  my  soul  hath  no  pleasure  in  him.' 

It  will  be  perceived  here,  that  the  variation  between 
the  Catholic  version  and  the  Revision  is  immaterial,  in- 
deed no  more  than  what  might  be  found  between  any 
two  versions  of  different  but  substantially  identical 
copies  of  the  same  document.  They  both,  however,  in 
sense  as  well  as  verbally,  differ  widely  from  the  Protes- 
tant version.  In  both  the  subject  of  the  two  verbs  live 
and  zuithdraz.',  or  shrink,  is  the  same,  and  but  one  ;  where- 
as in  the  Protestant  version  these  two  verbs  have  each 
a  different  subject,  though  the  original  assigns  to  each 
the  same  subject,  which  is  carefully  retained  in  the 
Catholic  version  and  in  the  Revision.  Again,  there  is 
in  the  original  no  such  expression  as  any  man,  or  anything 


334  The^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

like  it.  It  is  a  clear  forgery,  which  must  be  fathered 
on  the  Calvinistic  element  among  King  James's  trans- 
lators. But  what  motive  could  the  Calvinists  have  had 
for  committing  the  forger}- ?  A  very  good  one.  Be- 
cause, had  the  Protestant  Bible,  in  this  instance,  been  a 
faithful  translation  of  the  original,  every  reader  would 
have  seen  that  the  Calvinists  were  wrong  in  teaching, 
that  once  just,  always  just,  or,  to  quote  their  own  "  con- 
fession of  faith,"  "  the  justified. .  . .  can  never  fall  from 
the  state  of  justification.  '  Further  remarks  on  this  glar- 
ing corruption  are  rendered  unnecessary  by  what  Dr. 
Adam  Clarke  has  said  on  the  subject.  This  writer, 
whose  commentaries  on  the  Scripture  exhibit  intense 
hatred  of  Catholic  doctrines,  expressed,  too,  in  no  very 
polite  language,  at  Hebrews  x.  38,  gives  the  Protes- 
tant version,  but  if  any  man  draw  back,  and  the  Greek 
words  of  which  this  is  a  pretended  rendering,  as  well  as 
his  own  rendering  of  them,  thus :  "  but  if  he  draw  baek  : 
he,  the  man,  luho  is  justified  by  faith ;  for  it  is  of  him,  and 
none  other,  that  the  text  speaks."  Dr.  Clarke  then  con- 
tinues :  "  The  insertion  of  the  words  any  man,  if  done  to 
serve  the  purpose  of  a  particular  creed,  is  a  wicked  per- 
version of  the  words  of  God.  They  were  evidently 
intended  to  turn  away  the  relative  from  the  antecedent, 
in  order  to  save  the  doctrine  of  final  and  unconditional 
perseverance,  which  doctrine  the  text  destroys." 

7.  Protestants  very  generally  suppose  that  the  inspir- 
ation of  the  Scripture,  as  we  have  them,  is  clearly  es- 
tablished by  several  passages  found  therein,  as  if  the 
point  could  be  proved  otherwise  than  by  the  authority 
of  the  Church.  Among  the  passages  to  which  they 
appeal  for  the  purpose  is  II.  Tim.  iii.  16.  But  even 
this,  were   the   rendering  true  which  is   found   in   the 

'    The  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterians  in  the  United  States  of  Aitierica. — 
Philadelphia  Board  of  Education,  ch.  xi.,  art  v. 


A  nd  English  Protestant  Bible.  3 3  5 

"authorized  version,"   would    fail    to  demonstrate   the 
point  in  behalf  of  which  it  Is  cited. 

S  "All  scripture,   inspired  of  God,  is   profitable  to 

Catholic  Version—     j  teach,  etc.'' 

(  "  All   scripture  is  given   by  inspiration  of  God, 

Protestant  Version —  •%  ^^^^^  j^.  profitable  for  doctrine,  etc." 

4  «' Every  scripture  inspired  of  God  is  also  profita- 

Revised  Version—"       <  ^y^^  f^,,.  teaching,  etc." 


The  text  as  presented   by  the  Catholic  version  and 
the  Revision  is  substantially  the  same;  in  both   the  word 
"  also"  {kai\  which  appears  in  King  James's  version,  is 
wanting;  but  this  kai,  as  Griesbach  has  noted,  should  be 
omitted.     And  neither  of  the  two  has  the  first  is  of  the 
Protestant  version,  because  it  is  not  found  in  the  Greek. 
Dr.  Clark  observes  that  "  This  sentence  is  not  well  trans- 
lated" in  the  Protestant  version,  and  that  the  original. . . 
should  be  rendered  "  Every  writing  divinely  inspired  is 
profitable  for  doctrine,  etc."    Morever,  that  "  the  particle 
kai,  '  and:  is  omitted  by  almost  all  the  versions  and  many 
of  the  Fathers,  and  certainly  does  not  agree  well  with 
the  text."     Now,  what  are  we  to  think  of  King  James's 
translators?     Why  !  that  they  had  no  respect  for  either 
the  Old  or  New  Testament,  except  as  a  document  to  be 
adulterated  as  they  pleased,  and  thus  put  in  shape  for 
sanctioning  Protestant  principles.     Thus,  in  the  present 
case,  they,  without  the  fear  of  God  or  reverence  for  His 
holy  word,  inserted  is  where  St.  Paul  had  not  put  it, 
that  they  might  make  use  of  this  text  to  prove  that 
"  All  scripture  (their  own  vile  version  no  doubt  includ- 
ed) is  given  by  inspiration  of  God."     Ordinary  readers 
would-be  unable  to  detect  the  corruption;  while  those 
Protestants  who  at  the  time  were  sufficiently  learned 
to  perceive  such  gross  deviations  from  the  spirit  and 
text  of  the  original  would  maintain  a  discreet  silence, 
when  they  did  not  actually  undertake  to  defend  them 
against   the   attacks  of  Catholic    critics.     Does  it    not 
seem    that  all,  who  were  concerned   in   preparing  this 


336  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

so-called  authorised  version,he\\Q\Qd  that  any  attempt  on 
their  part  to  correct  the  inspired  writers  of  the  Bible 
(rather  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  spoke  through  those  writ- 
ers) was  excusable,  if  made  to  promote  the  success  of 
the  Protestant  religion  ? 

A  few  other  points  remain  to  be  noticed  before  this 
part  of  the  general  subject  is  dismissed.  Professor  W. 
R.  Smith,  then  of  Aberdeen,  acknowledges,  '  as  already 
remarked,  "  that  the  Reformers  and  their  successors,  up 
to  the  time  when  all  our  Protestant  versions  were  fixed, 
were  for  all  purposes  of  learning  in  the  hands  of  the 
Rabbins;  "  and  that  "  all  sound  Hebrew  scholarship  then 
resided  with  the  Jewish  doctors  (I),  and  so  the  Protes- 
tant scholars  became  their  disciples." '  Immediately 
after  he  admits  that  "  the  Reformers  and  their  success- 
ors did  practically  accept  the  results  of  Jewish  scholar- 
ship on  all  these  questions" — "  the  number  of  books  in 
the  canon,  the  best  text  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  the 
principles  upon  which  that  text  is  to  be  translated."  ' 
What  wonder,  then,  that,  as  the  Professor  adds,  "  It  was 
left  for  a  later  generation to  substitute  an  authorita- 
tive Jewish  tradition  for  the  authoritative  tradition  of 
the  Catholic  Church — to  swear  by  the  Jewish  canon 
and  the  Masoretic  text,  as  the  Romanists  swore  by  the 
Tridentine  canon  and  the  Vulgate  text  ?  "  '  The  wonder 
would  have  been,  had  "  a  later  generation"  acted  other- 
wise ;  that  "  later  generation,"  in  doing  as  it  did,  was  sim- 
ply reducing  to  practice  the  lesson  it  had  learned  from 
the  first  reformers,  who  themselves  had  learned  that 
same  lesson  sitting  humbly  at  the  feet  of  their  Rabbini- 
cal masters,  who  claimed  to  know  more  about  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament  than  the  whole  choir  of 
Apostles. 

Indeed,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  so  far  as  the  Bible  was  con- 

1    The  Old  Testame7it  in  the  Je^vish  Church,  p.  44. 

'^  Ibid.,  p.  46.  •'  Ibid.  ■*  Ibid. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  337 

ccnied,  the  general  sentiment  among  the  reformers  soon 
became  as  Jewish  as  it  well  could  be  without  actually 
denying  that  the  New  Testament  was  an  essential  part 
of  that  volume.  Had  they  done  that,  in  view  of  the 
premises  from  which  they  started,  their  course  would 
have  been  more  logical  than  it  really  was.  Practically, 
however,  they  seem  to  have  taken  far  more  interest 
in  the  Old  Testament  of  the  dead  past  than  in  the  New 
(^f  the  living  present.  While  Catholics,  as  had  been  al- 
ways the  case,  generally  received  in  baptism  the  name 
of  some  saint  belonging  to  the  New  Testament,  as 
Peter,  James,  lohn,  Bartholomew, Thaddasus,  Mark,  Luke 
etc.,  Protestants  preferred  to  select  their  names  from  the 
Old  Testament,  if  not  from  pagan  antiquity.  And  there 
were  then,  as  there  are  now,  few  families  among  the 
latter  not  possessing  a  Noah  or  an  Abraham,  an  Isaac 
or  a  Jacob,  a  Moses  or  a  Joshua,  a  Samuel  or  a  David, 
a  Solomon  or  a  Job,  a  Jehu  or  a  Joel,  an  Elisha  or  an 
Elihut.  By  them  Mesopotamia,  Jehovah  jiri,  and  other 
polysyllabic  words  of  the  Old  Testament  were  pro- 
nounced with  peculiar  unction,  while  "  the  sword  of  the 
Lord,  and  of  Gideon'  (another  favorite  name  among  them) 
did  duty  as  a  war-cry  to  excite  the  fanaticism  of  all 
against  the  so-called  Ahabs,  Jesabels,  and  priests  of  Baal, 
whom  the  saints  of  the  time  doomed  to  destruction  for  op- 
posing the  progress  of  evangelical  religion.  Moreover, 
their  local  as  well  as  personal  names  were  selected  by 
those  enthusiastic  admirers  of  the  Bible  frequently  from 
the  Old  instead  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  thus  seen 
that  Jerusalem  and  Zion,  Bethel  and  Bethlehem,  Para- 
dise and  Galilee,  Eden  and  Enon,  Shilo,  Sharon,  Salem, 
etc.,  names  peculiar  to  the  Old  Testament  or  common 
to  it  with  the  New,  had  for  them  a  much  greater  inter- 
est than  localities  mentioned  alone  in  the  latter. 

Besides,  many  of  the  early  reformers,    either  to    dis- 
play their  familiarity  with  Hebrew,  a  knowledge  of  which 


338  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Test  anient 

they  regarded  as  indispensable  to  the  study  of  Script- 
ure, or  to  depreciate  the  Septuagint  and  especially  the 
Vulgate,  the  only  copy  of  the  Bible  pronounced  authen- 
tic b}-  competent  authority, — contended  that  God's  rev- 
elation to  mankind,  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  was  to 
be  found  correctly  written  only  in  the  Hebrew  Script- 
tures,  as  extant  in  the  hands  of  the  Rabbins ;  and  that 
the  same  points,  divisions,  names,  every  iota  and  every 
word  that  these  Scriptures  contained,  had  been  dictated 
by  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  of  course  followed  that,  if  the 
Masoretic  text  were  translated,  no  changes  should  be 
made,  unless  such  as  should  be  necessar}^  to  preserve 
the  sense ;  and  that  all  Hebrew  names  should  be  retained, 
letter  for  letter,  as  written  in  the  original.  Therefore 
in  the  Latin  versions  written  by  Junius,  Tremellius, 
and  other  reformers,  Jesaaialin  or  Jeschahias  is  substitut- 
ed for  Isaias  of  the  Vulgate,  Jirnieiee  for  jfereniicB,  JeJihiz- 
kiialiii  for  EzeehicE,  Perctz  for  Phares,  Chetzron  for  Esron,  ' 
etc.  Thus  instead  of  Sanison  we  should  have  Shiinson  ; 
for  Solomon,  Schlannioh ;  for  Mathnsala,  Metneshelach  ; 
for  Nabnchodonosor,  NhncJiadnetsar. 

All  this  may  exhibit  Hebrew  scholarship,  but  it  is  a 
sorry  display  of  common  sense.  For  the  translator  of 
Ecclesiasticus,  ^  as  well  as  Josephus  and  Philo,  and  the 
author  of  II.  Mach.,  who  all  wrote  in  Greek,  though  Jews 
themselves,  together  with  St.  Jerome,  who  translated 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Latin,  in  the  translation  of 
Hebrew  names  followed  the  custom  established  by  the 
Hebrew  scholars  who  wrote  the  Alexandrine  version  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  some  three  centuries  before  the 
Christian  era — that  custom  being  to  modif}^  as  far  as 
necessar}^  all  proper  names,  so  as  to  be  easily  pro- 
nounced by  persons  speaking  the  language  in  which  the 
translators  copied  the  original.     Thus  Josephus,  '  enu- 

1  Migne,  Script.  Cursus,  Tom.  IV.,  p    326. 

^  Chapters  xlvi— xlviii.  '  Aniii]..  B.  T.,  c.  vi.,  v^  i. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  339 

merating  the  descendants  of  Noe,  after  mentioning  many 
names  found  in  Gen.  xi.,  writes  that  "  such  names  are 
pronounced  here  after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks  to 
please  my  readers ;  for  our  country  language  does  not 
so  pronounce  them."  For  a  translator  to  do  otherwise 
would  be  to  render  it  impossible  for  his  readers  not 
only  to  pronounce  as  they  should  such  proper  names 
as  might  occur  in  his  version,  but  to  comprehend  their 
meaning  if  such  they  should  have.  What  translator, 
for  example,  would,  when  translating  an  Italian  book 
into  English,  allow  such  a  statement  as  this  to  appear  in 
his  version,  or,  if  he  did,  what  mere  English  reader 
would  comprehend  who  or  what  was  meant:  "  Giovan- 
ni told  Giacomo  that  Arrigo  and  Giobbe  had  ran  off  to 
Parigi"?  or  what  translator  of  common  sense  would 
not  render  the  sentence  thus:  "John  told  James  that 
Henry  and  Job  had  ran  off  to  Paris"?  In  fact,  proper 
names,  whatever  the  language  in  which  they  have  their 
birth,  when  passing  into  another  always  undergo  such 
modifications  as  are  necessary  to  adapt  them  to  the  vo- 
calization of  the  people  by  whom  they  are  adopted. 
This  is  a  general  law.  And  nowhere  is  its  operation 
seen  on  a  larger  scale  than  in  the  New  World,  where 
so  many  Indian  personal  and  local  names,  after  various 
changes,  have  assumed  the  characteristics  of  civilized 
speech.  And  even  the  Hebrew  language  itself,  though 
confined  to  an  extremely  isolated  and  exclusive  race,  has 
in  the  course  of  ages  assimilated  in  the  same  way,  and 
for  the  same  reason,  many  an  Egyptian,  Persian,  Chal- 
dean, or  other  foreign  word.  For  the  Hebrew  Script- 
ures, like  many  other  compositions,  are  by  no  means 
destitute  of  such  examples. 

As  just  observed,  when  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were 
translated  into  Greek — that  being  the  first  known  oc- 
casion on  which  a  version  of  them  was  made — the  trans- 
lators  arraved    in    Greek    costume    the    proper    names 


340  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

which  they  found  in  the  original.  And  in  that  costume, 
so  far  as  it  was  possible,  they  were  admitted  into  the 
Latin  version  or  Vulgate,  made  from  the  Greek  version, 
it  may  be,  before  the  close  of  the  first  century.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  observe  that  the  orthography  of  the 
Vulgate,  so  far  as  that  orthography  concerned  proper 
names,  was  followed  throughout  Western  Christendom 
in  all  vernacular  versions — which  were  all  made  from  the 
Vulgate  in  England  as  well  as  elsewhere  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Reformation,  when  Protestant  versions  of  the  He- 
brew Old  Testament  first  made  their  appearance  in  Ger- 
many. But  it  was  not  until  a  later  period  that  the  ear- 
liest English  Protestant  version,  made  professedly  from 
the  same  text,  was  completed  and  placed  in  circulation. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


Other  Peculiarities  ok  the  English  Protestant 

Bible. 

By  the  time  that  the  so-called  "  authorized  version  " 
made  its  appearance,  the  absurd  attempt  of  a  few  reform- 
ers— who  "  were  for  all  purposes  of  learning  in  the  hands 
of  the  Rabbins," — to  carr}^  out  the  behests  of  their  mas- 
ters by  perpetuating  the  Hebrew  orthography^  of  Old 
Testament  names,  had  utterly  failed — the  insane  efifort 
of  the  craz}^  evangelicals,  to  impose  on  Christendom  a 
pronunciation    dictated    by    their    Masoretic   teachers, 
having  spent  its  force.     It  has  thus  happened  that  the  no- 
menclature of  the  EngHsh  Protestant  Bible  is  far  less 
Hebraic  that  many  of   the  Latin  versions,  which  were 
writtten  by  the    reformers   in    Germany.     Indeed,  the 
*'  authorized  version  "  smacks  no  more  of  Hebrew  than  it 
does  of  Greek  or  Latin.     The  Revisers  of  that  version 
sav  in  their  preface,  that  they  "  have  endeavored  to  as- 
certain the  system  of  transliteration  which  the  transla- 
tors  adopted  "  with    regard  to  "  proper    names," '  but 
do  not  appear  to  have  met  with  an}-  success.     No  won- 
der, however  ;  for  in  truth  the  idea  of  a  system  for  repro- 
ducing  in    English    the    names    found    in  the    Hebrew 
Scriptures  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  the  transla- 
tors ;  uniformity  and    consistencv  are  the  results  of   a 
system,  but  so  far  as  the  authorized  version  is  concerned, 
its  names  as  well  as  its  renderings  are  neither  uniform 
nor  consistent.    Thus  parallel  passages,  that  are  identical 

1     Preface  to  O.  Test. 

.341 


342  Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstainoit 

in  the  Hebrew,  are  not,  as  the  Revisers  admit,  always 
rendered  by  the  same  English  words.  And  as  to  names, 
it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  select  not  a  few,  each 
one  of  which  is  written  by  the  translators  sometimes  in 
one  way  sometimes  in  another,  as  if  in  such  matters  thev 
had  no  other  guide  or  system  than  their  own  capricious 
will.  Here  are  some  examples  of  the  kind  noted  by 
•'a  member'  of  the  American  Committee  of  Revision  : — 
Noah  and  Noe,  Korah  and  Core,  Hosea  and  Osee,  Sinai 
and  Sina,  Median  and  Madian,  Miletus  and  Miletum, 
etc.,  each  two  being  made  use  of  in  referring  to  the  one 
person  or  place." 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  instance  of  the  kind 
just  referred  to  is  that  of  the  prophet  surnamed  the 
Thesbite,  "^  who  was  contemporary  with  King  Achab. 
The  translators  of  the  authorized  version,  throughout  the 
Old  Testament  call  him  Elijah,  but  E/ias  in  the  New  ; 
why  the  change,  no  one  can  tell,  and  conjecture  in  the 
circumstances  would  be  useless.  When,  therefore,  we 
find  in  the  English  Protestant  Bible  persons  or  books 
named  Pharaoh,  Josua,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Isaiah,  Jere- 
miah, Ezekiel,  Hosea,  Obadiah,  Jonah,  Micah,  Habakkuk, 
Zephaniah,  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi,  instead  of 
Pharao,  Josue,  Esdras,  Nehemias,  Isaias,  Jeremias, 
Ezechiel,  Osee,  Abdias,  Jonas,  Micheas,  Habacuc,  So- 
phonias,  Aggasus,  Zacharias,  Malachias,  as  they  appear 
in  the  LXX.  and  Vulgate,  the  inference  must  be  in  all  such 
cases,  that  the  authors  of  the  English  Protestant  Bible,  in 
writing  Biblical  names,  followed  no  rule  or  precedent, 
no  system  or  principle,  other  than  their  own  varying 
whims.  For  example,  with  them  the  prophet  whom 
they  call  Isaiah  in  the  Old,  they  name  Esaiasin  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  prophet  b}-  whom  he  is  succeeded 
is    written  by    them  JcrciuiaJi   in    the   Old    Testament. 

'    Roberts,  Companion  to  (he  Rrcised  Version  of  the  English  N.  Test ,  p.  ill. 
'^  III.  Kincrs  xvii.  i. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  343 

Three  times  he  is  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
never  as  Jeremiah  in  the  [*rotestant  New  Testament. 
There  his  name  is  written  once  Jereniias  and  twice 
Jeremy  (why  not  Jerry  ?).  Jonah  of  the  Protestant  Old 
Testament  appears  as  Jonas  in  the  New,  while  the 
name  of  the  last  but  one  of  the  minor  [)rophets,  evident- 
h'  identical  with  that  of  the  father  of  John  the  Baptist, 
is  written  by  King  James's  translators  Zechariah  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  Zacharias  in  the  New.  Esdras, 
or,  as  the  English  Protestant  version  has  it,  Ezra,  is  no- 
where mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  but  the  name 
is  written  Esdras  by  Josephus.  ' 

Tn  writing  the  names  of  other  books,  the  authors  of 
the  "authorized  version,"  with  few  exce})ti()ns,  follow 
the  Septuagint  or  Vulgate.  They  call  /.  and  //.  Kings 
I.  and  //.  Samuel,  perhaps  because  the  Jews  in  the  time 
of  St.  Jerome,  after  counting  I.  and  IT.  Kings  as  one, 
called  it  Samuel,  and  later  Jews,  after  restoring  the 
twofold  arrangement,  restored  also  /.  and  //.  Samuel. 
But  as  a  name  for  these  two  books  Samuel  is  not  at  all 
appropriate,  for  that  prophet's  life  ended  before  the 
events  described  in  the  last  seven  chapters  of  the  first 
occurred.  Of  the  fifty-five  chapters  which  comprise  the 
two  books,  only  the  first  twenty-four  of  the  first  have 
any  relation  to  him.  These  books  are  therefore  in  no 
sense  an  exclusive  history  of  his  career;  nor  even  if  it 
be  supposed  that  he  as  an  author  had  anything  to  do 
with  them,  could  he  have  written  even  half  of  the  two. 
Then  why  call  them  I.  and  IT.  Samuel?  They  consist 
principally  of  the  events  which  transpired  during  the 
reign  of  two  kings,  Saul  and  David,  and  as  the  author  is 
unknown,  and  they  therefore  cannot  be  named  after  any 
writer,  the  title  of  I.  and  II.  Kings  is  quite  reasonable, 
as  being  adapted  to  the  rank  of  the  principal  personages 
with  whom  they  deal.     The  two  books  named  in  the 

1  Antii].,  B   XF.  V.  I.,  seq. 


344  T^Ji^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

Septuagint  and  Vulgate,  /.  and  //.  Paralipoinenon 
(things  omitted,  or  supplement)  are  called  in  the  "  au- 
thorized version,"  /.  and  //.  CJironicles,  a  word  indeed 
equivalent  to  Divre  Jiajainin  {ivords  of  days),  the  name 
given  them  by  the  Jews.  But  as  the  Jewish  title  means 
also  a  Diary  or  Journal,  these  two  books  might  have 
been  as  well  so  named  in  the  "  authorized  version." 
The  Hebrew  Scir  hascirim,  Septuagint  asina  ton  asumton, 
Latin  Canticuvi  Canticornni — all  signif_v  the  same  thing  — 
Canticle  of  Canticles — and  the  book  known  by  this 
name  to  Catholic  readers  is  so  called  in  the  Hebrew, 
Greek,  and  Latin  Bibles,-  but  is  entitled  in  the  "  author- 
ized version,"  tlie  Song  of  Solomon  and  Solomon  s  Song,  a 
name  which,  though  the  book  was  written  by  Solomon, 
was  first  given  it  b}'  the  Rabbins  in  their  disputes  about 
its  canonicity.  But  this  name  has  been  repudiated  by 
the  revisers,  who  call  it  the  Song  of  Songs.  In  all  these 
cases  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  Alexandrine 
translators  gave  to  each  book  the  Greek  equivalent  of 
the  title  it  bore  in  the  Hebrew  copy  before  them,  and 
that,  if  that  title  is  no  longer  found  in  Hebrew  Bibles, 
the  chanofe  has  been  made  at  some  time  in  the  interval 
between  the  age  of  these  translators  and  that  of  St. 
Jerome.  But  one  New  Testament  book  in  the  "  author- 
ized version  "  bears  a  different  title  from  that  which  tlie 
Vulgate,  following  the  original  Greek,  has  given  to  it. 
The  last  of  the  sacred  catalogue  is  called,  both  in  the 
Greek  and  Vulgate,  the  Apocalypse,  but  in  the  author- 
ized version,"  Revelation,  a  correct  alternate  certainly. 
But  why  the  change  ?  For  the  former  word  was  prob- 
ably as  much  at  home  in  England  as  the  latter  when 
that  version  was  written,  since  it  was  used  '  by  Milton, 
who  was  born  some  years  before  that  time.  If  the 
motive  of  those  who  wrote  that  version  was  to  render 
a  word  originally   Greek  more   intelligible  to   English 

'  Worcester's  Dictionary. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  345 

readers,  why  did  they  not  substitute  departure,  or  out- 
going, for  that  other  Biblical  Greek  title  Exodus  ?  But, 
as  the  remark  of  the  revisers  implies,  there  is  no  use  in 
trying  to  ascertain  the  system  adopted  by  the  transla- 
tors in  the  transliteration  of  .names.  For  their  work 
proves  that  they  had  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  probably 
did  not  think  it  necessary;  rather,  perhaps,  could  come 
to  no  agreement  on  the  point,  as  the  two  parties  among 
them  seem  to  have  been  engaged  in  a  game  of  give  and 
take  all  through. 

That  the  two  factions, of  which  the  translators  mainly 
consisted, were  accustomed  to  swap  words  and  passages, 
seems  unquestionable.  In  no  other  way  is  it  possible 
to  account  for  the  fact  that  in  some  instances  a  text  in 
the  original,  about  whose  true  meaning  there  could 
have  been  no  doubt,  is  wrongly  interpreted  so  as  to 
make  it  harmonize  with  some  doctrine  held  by  one  fac- 
tion; while  in  other  instances  a  word  or  sentence,  whose 
meaning  was  patent,  was  also  wrongly  interpreted  to 
adapt  it  to  some  principle  advocated  by  the  opposing 
faction.  This  system  of  verbal  exchange  between  the 
two  factions  has  extended  often  to  mere  single  words  ; 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  different  English  equiva- 
lents are  frequently  given  by  the  translators  for  the 
same  word  in  the  original,  even  when  the  context  did 
not  demand  any  variation  in  the  rendering.  Thus,  as 
the  Calvinists  were  allowed  to  interpret  Hebrews  x.  38 
in  such  a  way  as  to  save  their  doctrine  of  "final  and 
unconditional  perseverance,"  they  repaid  this  favor  done 
to  them  by  a  similar  one  granted  to  the  Episco- 
palians. The  latter  believed  in  the  divine  institution 
of  bishops,  rejected  by  the  others,  but  as  one  good 
turn  deserves  another,  they  were  permitted  in  Philip- 
pians  i.  i,  I.  Tim.  iii.  2,  and  Titus  i.  7,  to  translate 
Episkopos  by  the  word  Bishop.  But  when  Acts  xx.  28., 
was  reached,  the  balance  of  the  account  seems  to  have 


346  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Test  anient 

been  in  favor  of  the  Calvinists,  who,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  were  allowed  by  their  friends  on  the  other  side 
to  translate  Episkopous  by  overseers.  However,  when  the 
translators  afterwards  came  to  I.  Peter  ii.  25,  the  only 
other  text  where  the  word  occurs  in  the  New  Testament, 
that  balance  appears  to  have  been  the  other  wa}^  for 
there  Episkopon  was  rendered  bishop.  The  revisers  were 
composed  of  the  same  two  parties  as  the  translators 
— Episcopalians  and  Calvinists.  The  EpiscopaHans,  how- 
ever, had  inaugurated  the  movement  for  providing  every 
English  speaking  Protestant,  the  world  over,  with  a  gen- 
uine Bible,  instead  of  the  spurious  volume  issued  by  the 
translators.  And  as  the  work  of  correction  progressed, 
they  exercised  a  controlling  influence  in  the  deliberations 
of  those,  who  took  part  in  the  enterprise.  To  them, 
therefore,  is  to  be  attributed  the  substitution  of  bishop 
for  overseer,  wherever  the  latter  word  was  used  by  the 
translators.  A  concession,  however,  had  to  be  made 
to  the  prejudices  of  their  puritanical  associates.  And, 
as  a  consequence,  wherever  the  reader  meets  with 
bishop  in  the  revised  text,  his  attention  is  directed  to 
"overseer''  in  a  foot  note,  even  when  the  Redeemer 
is  called  the  "  Bishop  of  your  souls."  However  irrev- 
erent the  application  of  overseer  might  seem  in  this 
particular  case,  the  Anglican  element  had  to  surren- 
der its  traditional  conservatism  in  the  interests  of  har- 
mony. 

In  the  only  three  texts  where  diakonos  is  found  in  the 
New  Testament,  it  is  invariably  rendered  deacon  by 
the  Protestant  translators,  as  well  as  the  revisers.  This 
was  to  be  expected,  for  the  word  is  one  about  which, 
whatever  its  meaning,  there  could  be  no  difference  of 
opinion,  as  the  principal  sects,  then  and  now,  among 
English  speaking  Protestants  had  and  have  all  their 
deacons,  though  the  functions  of  these  officials  ma)"  not 
be  the  same  in  everv  case. 


Ami  Etii^lish  Protestant  Bible.  347 

Presbutcros  is  another  word  which  seems  to  have  been 
an  object  of  barter  between  the  conservative  and  radi- 
cal elements  by  which  the  "  authorized  version"  has 
been  made  what  it  is ;  but  in  this  case  the  radical  ele- 
ment has  been  allowed  to  have  its  own  way  whenever 
the  word  presented  itself.  The  privilege  was  earned,  no 
doubt,  in  the  course  of  mutual  concessions  made  in  the 
interests  of  peace, — though  it  seems  strange  that  the  con- 
servative element  never,  even  once,  contrived  to  render 
the  word  by  one  which,  as  an  anglicized  derivative  from 
presbiiteros,  was  long  familiar  to  those  who  represented 
that  element,  and  was,  in  fact,  the  official  name  by  which 
one  of  their  orders  of  ministers  has  ever  been  designat- 
ed during  the  three  centuries  of  their  existence.  Pres- 
biiteros is  met  with  more  than  forty  times  in  the  New 
Testament.  In  Acts  ii.  17  it  occurs  in  a  quotation  from 
Joel,  and  is  there  rendered  seniores  in  the  Vulgate,  and 
old  men  in  the  Rhemish  as  well  as  the  "  authorized  ver- 
sion." In  all  other  passages  elder  is  used  as  its  English 
equivalent  by  King  James's  translators,  senior  and  an- 
cient by  the  Vulgate  and  Rhemish  version  respectively, 
except  in  six  texts.  Senior,  aneient,  and  elder  are  prac- 
tically synonymous,  for  the  preference  given  by  a  trans- 
lator to  any  of  the  three  words  may  be  regarded 
generall}^  more  as  a  matter  of  taste  than  of  textual  fidel- 

The  six  texts  wherQ  presbuteros  is  not  rendered  senior 
by  the  Vulgate  and  ancient  by  the  Rhemish  version,  but 
presbyter  by  the  former  a.nd priest  by  the  latter,  are  Acts 
xiv.  22,  XV.  2  ;  I.  Tim.  v.  17,  19  ;  Titus  i.  5  ;  James  v.  14. 
Evidently,  the  reason  for  adopting  this  rendering  was 
the  belief  on  the  part  of  those  who  first  translated  the 
Greek  New  Testament  into  Latin, — and  that  was  prob- 
ably within  the  first  century  or  verv  soon  after, — and  of 
those  Catholics  who  translated  the  Vulgate  into  Eng- 
lish, that  by  presbnteros  in  these  six  texts  was  meant  asa- 


348  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

cred  or  regularl}'  ordained  minister,  not  a  mere  layman, 
however  venerable,  like  a  senior,  an  ancient,  or  an  elder.  ' 
That  all  these  translators  were  correct  as  to  the  word 
b}^  which  they  rQndQYQd  presbnteros,2ii  least  in  several  of 
those  six  texts,  there  appears  no  room  whatever  to 
doubt.  The  functions  of  \\\g  presbntcros  :\s  ^uch.,  ?,o  far 
as  he  was  a  strictly  Jewish  official,  were  judicial  and 
conciliar  ;  civil,  not  religious. '  Hence,  to  those  who  are 
so  designated  in  the  Gospels  particularly,  and  in  several 
passages  which  occur  in  other  parts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  name  of  elder  is  not  quite  inapplicable,  espe- 
ciall}'  since  age,  as  well  as  knowledge  and  integrity  of 
life,  was  generally  considered  a  qualification  for  the  dig- 
nit}'.  But,  as  an  equivalent  for  the  Christian /'rr.$-Z'///'i;  r- 
os  of  the  Apostolic  or  any  other  age,  elder  deserves  no 
consideration  ;  employed  in  that  sense,  it  is  altogether 
inappropriate,  and  must  be  rejected  as  false  and  mis- 
leading. The  former  word,  no  doubt,  has  a  wide  range, 
embracing,  as  it  appears,  all  grades  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  from  the  diaconate  upwards,  as  diaeonate^ 
seems  to  have  been  applicable  to  all  below  it.  Thus,  if 
we  compare  Acts  xx.  17  with  28,  we  find  that  the  word 
presbuteroi  included  bishops.  The  same  fact  ma}'  be  in- 
ferred from  a  comparison  of  Titus  I.  5  with  7,  and  is 
implied  in  I.  Tim.  iv.  14.  Even  St.  Peter,  who  in  the 
beginning  of  his  First  Epistle  proclaims  himself  "  an 
apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,"  towards  the  end  styles  himself, 
prince  of  the  Apostles  though  he  was,  a  suni-presbuteros" — 
*'  fellow-presbyter."  Need  we  wonder,  then,  that  St. 
John  commences  his  second  and  third  epistles  by  an- 
nouncing himself  ts. presbuteros.  In  these  three  instances 
elder  is  the  word  used  in  the  "  authorized  version."  But 
nothing  better  could  be  expected  from  the  translators, 

'   Worcester's  Dictionary. 

■^  Joseplius,  Life.  14,  38;  Antiq.,  B.  IV.,  c.  viii.,  vS  14  ;  \Vars,'yi.  II.  c,  xx.,  \  5. 

3   PhiU.  i.  I.  ^  I.    Peter,  v.  i. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  349 

Their  business  was  to  make  the  Bible  proclaim  in  Eng- 
lish, not  what  it  contained,  but  what  they  themselves  pro- 
fessed. This,  however,  merely  by  the  way,  as  the  point 
here  insisted  on  is  that  each  member  of  the  Christian 
ministry  as  instituted  at  first,  whatever  the  class  to 
which  he  belonged,  was  sometimes  called  a  presbntcros. 
And  that  point,  so  long  as  we  are  guided  by  the  divine 
record,  cannot  be  disputed.  It  does  not,  however,  fol- 
low that  there  was  no  essential  distinction  between  the 
various  classes,  of  which  that  ministry  consisted.  To 
suppose  that,  would  be  a  serious  error.  An  Apostle  could 
do  all  that  an  episkopos,  2i  presbuteros,  or  a  diaeonos  could 
do,  and  something  more;  but  none  of  these  could  do  all 
that  the  class  or  classes  above  him  could  do,  although 
he  could  do  many  things  which  they  as  ministers  did. 
He  could,  even  if  holding  the  lowest  rank,  baptize  and 
preach  the  Gospel,  for  instance. 

But,  to  return  to  those  six  texts,  where  presbuteros  is 
\.xzx\s\'A.\.Q.<^ presbyter  in  the  Vulgate,  and/rzW/  in  the  Rhem- 
ish  version,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  either  word  is 
the  only  proper  equivalent  for  presbuteros  in  several,  in- 
deed in  all,  of  the  texts  indicated.  Take  for  example  the 
first  of  these  texts.  Acts  xiv.  22.  There  it  is  stated  that 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  both  called  Apostles  in  verse  13, 
after  having  made  many  converts,  "  ordained  "  (Vulgate 
and  "  authorized  version  ;  ")  "  appointed,"  (Revision)  to 
them  presbuterous  in  every  church."  These  presbiiteroi 
must  therefore  have  received,  whatever  rite  was  per- 
formed upon  them,  power  to  provide  the  recent  converts 
with  all  things  necessary  to  their  salvation,  and  to  ad- 
mit others  to  membership  in  the  infant  churches  for 
which  they  were  appointed.  For,  as  Paul  and  Barnabas 
departed  immediately,  there  was  left  no  minister  higher 
than  the  presbnteroi  themselves.  Now,  had  they  been 
elders, \\\^y  could  not  have  labored  "in  word  and  in 
doctrine."     They  could  not  have  ordained  ruling  elders 


.->?>■ 


The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 


and  deacons.  They  could  not  have  administered  Bap- 
tism nor  the  Lord's  Supper,  nor  solemnized  marriage, 
nor  visited  the  sick,  nor  exhorted  those  present  at  a  funer- 
al "  to  consider  the  frailty  of  life."  For,  all  these  ofihces, 
and  many  others,  are  performed  by  ministers  or  pastors, 
not  by  elders,  who  are  chosen  "  for  the  purpose  of  exercis- 
ing government  and  discipline  in  conjunction  with  pas- 
tors," '  of  whom,  in  the  case  before  us,  there  was  not  one 
on  hand,  and  consequently  nothing  to  do  for  the  elders, 
whom  the  "  authorized  version  "  says  Paul  and  Barna- 
bas ordained. 

It  is  true  that,  since  the  "  authorized  version  "  was 
written,  several  sects  have  sprung  up  among  English 
speaking  Protestants.  These,  unlike  the  Episcopalians, 
Presbyterians,  and  others  who  were  represented  among 
the  translators  of  that  version,  are  not  responsible  for 
its  faults,  unless  so  far  as  a  failure  to  protest  against 
those  faults  might  involve  responsibility.  Some  of  these, 
sects  have,  others,  perhaps  influenced  b}'  the  Episcopa- 
lians, have  not  elders.  In  only  one,  the  Episcopal  Meth- 
odists, does  it  appear  that  the  elders  are  "  ordained," 
the  ceremony  being  performed  by  a  bishop,  who,  how- 
ever, as  such  is  one  of  a  class  the  first  of  which  was 
ordained  by  a  simple  Anglican  minister.  But  even  if  it 
be  supposed  that  such  elders  have  been  all  ordained  by 
ministers  having  authority  for  that  purpose,  their  ordi- 
nation has  been  such  as  to  raise  them  no  higher  at  most 
than  respectabje  laymen.  For  in  some  cases,  as  among 
the  Presbyterians,  the  ceremon}-  consists  principally  of 
a  prayer  by  the  minister.  And  even  if  among  some  sects 
it  includes  the  laying  on  of  hands,  many  of  the  adjuncts 
peculiar  to  it,  as  described  in  the  Scriptures,  are  wanting, 
so  that  it  cannot  be  supposed  to  confer  on  those  who  re- 
ceive it  any  spiritual  gift,  grace,  or  power  whatever. 

'  The  Form  of  Govemmeni  of  tlw  Preshylcrian  Church  in  tJie  U.  S  A.,  ch's 
v.,  v.,  xiii. — Directory  for  Worship,   ch's  vii.,  viii.,  xi.,  xii.,  xiii. 


A)id  English  ProtcstiDit  Bible.  351 

These  adjuncts  are,  as  indicated  in  the  Scriptures, '  pray- 
er and  fasting,  the  latter  a  practice  seldom,  if  ever,  em- 
ployed outside  the  Catholic  Church  for  ordination  or 
any  other  purpose,  but  strictly  enforced  by  her  at  each 
quarterl}^  recurrence  of  the  Ember  days,  when  the  Sac- 
rament of  Orders  is  usually  administered.  Prayer  and 
fasting,  however,  even  with  the  chcirotonia,  ^  stretching 
forth  of  hands,  and  with  the  epithcsis  ton  chciron, '  imposi- 
tion of  hands,  which  are  one  and  the  same  act,  or  rather 
parts  of  one  and  the  same  act,  as  may  be  seen  whenever 
holy  orders  are  conferred  in  the  Catholic  Church,  do  not 
constitute  a  Christian  minister  of  any  kind.  For  this  pur- 
pose an  ordainer  is  needed  who,  besides  doing  as  just 
explained,  inherits  by  regular  succession  at  least  a  por- 
tion of  the  power  conferred  by  Our  Lord  on  his  Apostles. 
And  it  is  only  then  that  the  grace, which  was  in  Timothy 
by  the  imposition  of  St.  Pauls  hands,'  is  communicated  in 
ordination.  Were  it  not  so,  the  rite  of  ordination,  if  per- 
formed by  Simon  Magus,  would  have  produced  the  same 
effect  as  if  administered  by  Simon  Peter.  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  add  that  a  Protestant  minister,  whatever  his  rank, 
having  (perhaps  without  any  fault  of  his  own)  no  connec- 
tion with  that  venerable  line  to  which  the  powers  of 
the  Christian  priesthood  have  been  divinely  communi- 
cated, and  through  which  they  are  preserved,  is  incapa- 
ble of  promoting  by  ordination  any  one  even  to  the 
lowest  grade  of  that  priesthood.  He  himself,  should  he 
by  the  mercy  of  God  be  converted  from  his  errors,  after 
being  very  probably  baptized,  would  be  treated  by  the 
Church  as  a  Christian  laic,  unless  Divine  grace  called 
him  to  the  sacred  ministry;  when,  however,  in  every  step 
he  might  take,  from  tonsure  to  holy  orders,  his  pre- 
vious ordination,  bv  whomsoever  conferred,  would  be 
regarded  as  null  and  void.     But  enough  has  been  said  to 

'  Acts  vi.  6;  xiii.  3;  xiv.  22.  -  Acts  xiv.  22;  II.  Cor.  viii.  19. 

'  Acts  vi.  6;  xiii.  3;  I.  Tim.  iv.  14;  II.  Tim.  i.  6.  '  IbitL 


3  52  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

prove,  that  in  the  verse  which  has  occasioned  these  re. 
marks, there  is  nothing  which  would  justify  a  translator 
in  YQndeYing  presbuteroiis  "  elders."  On  the  contrary,  all 
the  circumstances  combine  to  attest  that  it  was  not  mere 
laymen  (for  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century 
"elders"  were  generally  regarded  as  nothing  more  by 
Protestants)  but  priests  at  least,  or,  if  you  will  have  it  so, 
ordained  ministers,  who  were  commissioned  by  apostol- 
ic authority  to  preach,  administer  sacraments,  perform 
divine  service, — in  a  word,  to  do  whatever  was  necessary 
for  the  salvation  of  those  over  whom  they  were  placed, 
and  to  labor  for  the  propagation  of  the  faith  in  the  same 
way  and  with  the  same  means  as  SS.  Paul  and  Barna- 
bas had  done. 

That  a  careful  study  of  the  other  five  verses  in  which 
prcsbuteros  is  found,  or  of  the  context  in  which  the  word 
occurs,  will  lead  to  the  same  conclusion,  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt.  In  fact,  what  in  Titus  i.  5  Titus  is 
directed  to  do,  is  exactly  the  same  thing  which  Paul 
and  Barnabas  had  already  done  elsewhere,  according  to 
Acts  xiv.  22  ;  and,  as  in  the  latter  case  we  have  seen  that 
presbuteroi  constituted  a  grade  of  ecclesiastics  higher 
than  elders,  so  in  the  former  case  presbuteroi  must,  for 
the  same  reason,  also  designate  a  class  of  ecclesiastics 
whose  duties  demanded  a  far  greater  degree  of  authority 
than  that  recognized  by  any  Protestant  denomination  in 
elders -aX.  the  time,thatthe  authorized  version  was  written. 

And  as  to  James  v.  14,  ihere  the  use  of  the  word  elders, 
as  an  equivalent  for  presbuteroi,  is  perhaps  the  boldest 
attempt  of  the  kind  made  by  King  Jam.es's  translators  to 
pervert  the  plain  sense  of  the  original.  For  the  princi- 
pal effect  of  the  sacred  rite  divinely  enjoined  in  that 
passage  by  St.  James,  whether  that  rite  be  or  be  not  con- 
sidered a  sacrament,  is  one  with  the  production  of  which 
a  mere  elder,  as  regarded  by  the  two  principal  parties 
whose  votes  determined  the  character  of  the  "  author- 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  353 

ized  version,"  could  have  had  nothing  to  do  ;  namely,  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  This  grace  was  conferred  on  the  sick 
man  through  the  ministrations  of  the  presbiiteroi  brought 
in  by  him,  these  ministrations  consisting  of  prajnng  over 
him  and  anointing  him  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord. 
Now,  if  this  holy  ordinance — for  Jioly  it  is,  since  it  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  pardon  of  sin — may  be  administered  by 
one, who  has  no  authority  even  for  visiting  the  sick — for 
the  right  to  do  so  is  reserved  to  ordained  ministers  ' — 
it  follows  that  the  institution  of  the  Christian  ministry 
is  to  be  attributed  to  superstition,  not  to  divine  appoint- 
ment. For  the  Christian  ministry,  as  all  hold,  has  been 
ordained  by  God  principally  in  order  that  sin  and  its 
sad  consequences  may  be  removed  by  the  agency  of 
that  ministry.  But  here  we  have  a  case  in  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  "  authorized  version,"  an  elder,  that  is  one 
who  is  not  a  minister,  a  bishop,  or  pastor, '  can  adminis- 
ter an  ordinance, which  cleanses  from  all  sin  a  Christian 
in  the  most  critical  moment  of  his  Hfe,  when  perhaps  he 
is  about  to  appear  before  the  judgment  seat  of  God. 
Thus  every  Christian, who  accepts  the  "authorized  ver- 
sion "  as  a  true  copy  of  the  Scripture,  is  compelled, 
either  to  admit  that  the  word  elders,  which  that  version 
substitutes  for  the  presbnteroiis  of  St.  James,  is  a  false 
translation,  or  to  conclude  that  the  Christian  ministry  is 
a  snare,  a  delusion,  a  fraud. 

The  passage,  as  it  stands,  shows  that  the  ceremony 
which  it  describes  is  as  much  a  sacrament  as  either  of 
those,  which  Protestants  generally  admit,  baptism,  for 
example.  It  has  been  "  ordained  by  Christ,"  otherwise 
its  administration  would  not  have  been  enjoined  by  an 
Apostle,  nor  could  it,  when  conferred,  secure  the  for- 
giveness of  sins.  It  "  is  a  certain  and  effectual  sign  of 
grace."  '     In  fact,  there  is  in  it  the  pardon  of  sins,  so  St. 

'  Presbyterian  Directoty  for  Worship,  c.  xii.  -  Ibid.,  passim. 

*  Episcopalian  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  Articles  of  Religion,  Art.  xxv. 


354  T^^^'^  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstaine?it 

James  assures  us.  There  is  also  in  it  "  a  spiritual  or 
sacramental  union  between  the  sign  (the  anointing)  and 
the  thing  signified,"  '  the  cure  of  the  wounds  inflicted  on 
the  soul  by  "  sins."  Protestant  writers,  of  course,  reject 
the  obvious  import  of  the  text,  and  allege  that  the 
anointing  with  oil  was  "  recommended  as  a  natural 
means  of  restoring  health,"  and  that  any  spiritual  bene- 
fit to  be  gained  by  the  ceremony  should  be  attributed 
to  "the  prayer  of  faith."  For,  as  they  further  argue, 
"  oil  in  Judea  was  celebrated  for  its  sanative  qualities," 
and  "  was  and  is  frequently  used  in  the  East  as  a  means 
of  cure  in  very  dangerous  diseases."  ^  But  the  pardon 
of  sins  is  mentioned  by  St.  James  as  the  consequence  of 
all  that,  not  of  a  part  of  what,  was  to  be  done  by  the 
presbuteroi  when  brought  in  by  the  sick  man — their 
anointing  of  and  praying  over  him.  What  is  said  b}' 
Protestant  writers  about  the  curative  effects  of  oil,  and 
its  general  use  in  Judea  and  elsewhere,  is  true.  The 
same  remarks,  however,  apply  in  a  much  greater  degree 
to  the  importance,  general  use,  and  sanative  properties 
of  water.  In  fact,  as  one  of  the  necessaries  of  life  for 
man  and  beast,  especially  in  those  countries  where  the 
Jews  resided,  it  has  been  and  is  still  a  matter  of  pro- 
found consideration  ;  and  we  know  that  as  early  as  the 
patriarchal  period  it  was  often  an  object  of  contention, 
and  a  subject  of  solemn  treaties  between  the  chieftains 
of  that  time,  and  their  respective  followers.  '  In  fact, 
among  all  people  it  was  ever  of  far  more  importance 
than  oil;  and  this  was  especialh^  the  case  among  the 
Jews,  who  not  only  used  water  like  other  nations  for 
drinking,  cooking,  washing,  and  preserving  health,  but 
employed  it  in  almost  innumerable  waN-s  for  religious 

^    The  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.,  ch.  xxvii.,  2. 

2  Clarke  in  loco;  Kitto's  CycL,  Anointing. 

3  Gen.  xiii.  lo;  xxi.  14-16,  19   25,  etc.;   xxiv.  il,  15.  etc.;   xxvi.  14,  etc.;   xxix. 
2,  etc. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  355 

purposes ;  for  without  it  the  ablutions  and  purifications 
perscribed  by  the  law,  under  which  they  lived,  could 
not  be  performed.  Now,  water,  as  is  generally  believed 
by  all  Christians,  is  an  essential  element  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  baptism,  whatever  may  be  the  effects  of  that 
rite.  But  if  the  Protestant  interpretation  of  James  V. 
14,  15  be  correct,  may  it  not  be  proved  in  the  same 
way  that  water  has  nothing  to  do  with  baptism,  and 
that  that  sacred  ordinance,  whether  intended  as  a  means 
by  which  those  who  receive  it  "  are  grafted  into  the 
Church,"  '  or  as  a  sign  and  seal  of  the  covenant  of 
grace,"  '  is  duly  fulfilled,  not  by  the  application  of  water, 
which  is  recommended  merely  as  a  means  for  promot- 
ing cleanliness  and  health,  but  by  "  the  prayer  of  faith  " 
implied  in  the  words  with  which  the  rite  is  performed. 
Besides,  it  is  an  intolerable  tax  on  human  credulity  to 
ask  men  to  believe  that,  after  the  entire  Church,  East 
and  West,  had  all  along  been  mistaken  about  the  meaning 
of  James  v.  14,  15,  the  credit  of  discovering  the  true 
sense  of  that  passage  w^as  reserved  for  a  few  expounders 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  who,  without  authority  from 
any  source,  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  had  each  constructed 
a  new  creed  for  himself  and  such  as  were  willing  to 
follow  him.  The  disciples  of  these  expounders  are  al- 
ways ready  to  appeal  to  the  practice  of  the  early  Church, 
when  that  practice  coincides  with  their  own.  But  when 
it  does  not,  then  their  practice  according  to  their  new  be- 
lief is  more  authoritative  than  that  of  Christian  antiquity; 
and  they  even  distort  the  Scripture  and  misinterpret  its 
meaning,  to  convince  their  dupes  that  they  are  right. 
Such  dishonest  inconsistency  is  too  glaring  to  escape 
the  notice  of  any  one  not  wilfully  blind.  Barclay,  the 
learned  Quaker,  when  answering  their  arguments  drawn 
from  the  practice  of  the  primitive  Church  in  favor  of 

1    Common  Pravcr,  Articles  of  Religion,  Art,  xxvii. 
•^  Presbyl.  Con/,  of  Faith,  ch.  xxviii. 


356  The  Canon  of  tlu  Old  Tcstainoit 

what  they  call  "the  Lord's  Supper,"  had  therefore  good 
reason  for  asking:  "  How  come  they  to  pass  over  far 
more  positive  commands  of  the  Apostles,  as  matters  of 
no  moment  as. . .  James  v.  14,  where  it  is  expressly  com- 
manded, That  tJie  sick  be  anointed  ivitJi  oil  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord.   "  ' 

No  one  can  deny  that  elder  of  the  "  authorized  ver- 
sion," like  its  equivalent  senior  of  the  Vulgate  "axx^  ancient 
of  the  Rhemish  version,  faithfully  preserves  the  primitive 
sense  oi  presbtiteros  employed  by  the  inspired  writers  of 
the  New  Testament.  But  since  it  has  pleased  King 
James's  translators  in  several,  and  their  Revisers  in  all 
instances,  after  the  example  of  the  Rhemish  translators, 
to  insert  in  the  English  text  bishop,  not  overseer,  for  the 
episkopos  of  the  original,  and  has  seemed  good  to  both 
to  render  the  diakonos  of  the  original  not  by  its  radical 
meaning  servant,  but  b}^  deacon,  the  form  it  has  assumed 
in  ecclesiastical  language  {bishop  and  deacon  being  re- 
spectively regular  English  derivatives  of  the  Greek 
episkopos  and  diokonos),  does  it  not  seem  strange  that 
the  English  Protestant  translators  shoidd  have  rendered 
presbuteros  by  elder,  instead  of  by  priest,  the  English 
legitimate  descendant  of  presbuteros?  At  least  the}^ 
should  have  done  so,  wherever  the  word  presbuteros  is 
applied  to  an  official  in  the  Christian  Church.  This 
seems  to  have  been  the  rule  followed  by  the  writers 
who  translated  the  New  Testament  into  English  at 
Rheims.  And  had  that  rule  been  adopted  b}'  those^ 
who  prepared  the  English  Protestant  version,  or  by  the 
revisers  of  that  version,  one  ver}-  serious  blemish  which 
still  disfigures  that  work  would  never  have  appeared, 
or,  after  having  appeared,  would,  in  the  last  attempt 
made  to  expurgate  the  work,  have  been  summarily  re- 
moved.    Y  or  priest  is  as  much  a  derivative  oi  presbuteros 

'  Apology,  Prop,  xiii.,  ^  viii.    p.  479.  London  Edition,  1780- 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  357 

as  bishop  is  of  cpiskopos,  or  deacon  of  diakonos,  and  what 
is  more,  was  as  thoroughly  domesticated  in  the  English 
language,  when  the  "  authorized  version"  was  written,  as 
either  of  the  other  words.  In  fact,  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that, in  one  form  or  othei",it  was  assigned  a  place 
in  the  vernacular  of  England,  when  the  people  of  that 
countr}'  embraced  the  Christian  religion,  and  has  main- 
tained its  ground  in  that  vernacular  up  to  the  present 
time. 

¥oY  priost  '  was  the  name,  by  which  the  ecclesiastic 
who  said  Mass,  administered  five  out  of  the  seven  sac- 
raments, and  preached  the  Gospel  with  authority,  was 
known  to  the  people  of  England  in  Anglo  Saxon  times. 
He  was  also  called  "the  Mass  priest,""  probably  on  ac- 
count of  the  principal  function  he  performed.  What 
he  performed  this  function  on,  was,  as  now,  an  "  altar," 
and  among  the  articles  he  used  while  ofificiating  thereat 
were  "a  chalice  "  and  "  a  chasuble."  ^  That  was  as  early 
as  833.  Gildas  the  Wise,  who  flourished  in  the  sixth 
centur}^  speaks  of  the  priests  (sacerdotes)  "  extending 
their  hands  at  venerable  altars  over  the  most  hoi}'  sacri- 
fices of  Christ."  '  Now  read  the  prayer  recited,  according 
to  an  Anglo  Saxon  Pontifical  of  the  eighth  century,  and 
written  in  Anglo  Saxon  characters,  by  a  bishop  when 
conferring  priestly  orders  on  a  candidate.  ''  Do  Thou,  O 
Lord,  infuse  the  hand  of  Thy  benediction  over  this  Thy 
servant,  whom  we  dedicate  to  the  honor  of  the presbyterj' 

(presbyterii),  that he  may  preserve  the  gift  of  Thy 

ministry  pure  and  immaculate,  and  through  the  service 
of  Thy  people  may  transform  by  an  immaculate  benedic- 
tion the  body  and  blood  of  Thy  Son.'' '  And  say,  if  the  ser- 
vant here  mentioned  was  not  on  the  conclusion  of  the 

I   l.ingard,  Ang/o  .Saxon  Church,  ]).  56,  note  73.  etc. 

3  Maitland.   The  Dark  Ages,  \^.  29. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  242.  ^  Bibliotheca  Max.  Patritin.  viii   p.  716. 

s  Lingard,  Ang.  Sax.  Church,  note  X.  p.  29;;    ori^innl  in  Latin. 


358  Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

ceremony  ?i  priest,  a  real  sacrificing  priest,  •ix.'s,  that  word  is 
understood  among  Catholics,  what  in  the  world  was  he? 
That  the  Anglo  Saxon  woxdi  priest  {^priest  or  presbyter) 
meant  a  sacrificing  priest,  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever, 
for  among  Anglo  Saxon  Christians  saecrd  was  an  alter- 
nate for  priest."  And  sacerd'is  simply  Anglo  Saxon  for  the 
Latin  sacerdos,  which  always  meant  in  Christian  as  well 
as  pagan  times  a  sacrificing  priest.  Besides,  Gildas  the 
Wise,  already  cited,  who  wrote  in  Latin,  applies  sacerdo- 
tinni  (priesthood)  and  presbytcrinin  (presbytery)  to  the 
same  state  or  office.  The  conclusion  here  insisted  on  is 
actually  forced  on  our  acceptance  by  the  writers,  who 
have  flourished  all  along  among  the  Christians  of  the 
West;  or  rather  and  better  by  the  conciliar  decrees  pro- 
mulgated in  that  part  of  the  Church  Universal.  Lo(jk 
for  example  at  canon  seventy-five  of  the  Council  of  El- 
vira, in  Spain,  one  of  the  earliest  councils  held  in  West- 
ern Christendom,  being  dated  305  or  306.  The  heading 
of  that  canon  is  "  concerning  those  who  accuse  bishops 
and  priests  (sacerdotes)."  Then  the  canon  itself  com- 
mences thus  :  ''  If  any  one  shall  bring  false  charges 
against  a  bishop,  or  a  priest  (presbyterum),  etc."  "  The 
Council,  therefore,  considered  sacerdos  and  presbyter 
(priest)  convertible  terms.  And  it  would  be  easy  to 
prove  that  this  was  the  case  everywhere  in  the  West. 
From  canon  I.  of  the  Council  of  Ancyra,  a  city  of  Gala- 
tia,  held  in  314,  it  appears  that  it  was  forbidden /'r^'j-/''//'/r;'- 
oiis  (we  are  now  examining  the  practice  of  Eastern  Chris- 
tendom) under  certain  circumstances  to  sacrifice  {pros- 
pJiereiri).  '  The  presbntcros,  therefore,  was  not  only  what 
the  Latins  called  a  sacerdos,  but  among  the  Greeks  what 
they  called  a  Jiicreus,  the  proper  Greek  name  for  a  sacri- 
ficer.  For  the  same  reason  the  presbntcros  could  not 
have  been  what  the  Episcopalians  call  a  priest,  a  name 

'   Lingard,  Anglo  Saxon  C/nnr/i,  p.  56,  note  73,  74.  C<tt/i.  Diet.,  priest. 
*  Hefele,  Hist,  of  Coiinc,  I.,  p.  169.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  201. 


And  Rnglish  Protestant  Bible.  359 

by  which  they  designate  their  minister,  nor  could   he 
have  been  a  Presbyterian  or  Methodist  elder,  as  no  one 
pretends  that  either  of  the  two  sacrifices.     Again,  if  the 
history  of  tlie  Council  of  Neo  C^esarea,  a  town  of  Cap- 
padocia,    held    314-325,  be  consulted,   it   will  be  found 
that  in  its  ninth  canon  it  is  stated  that  in  certain  circum- 
stances a  presbuteros  should  not  offer  the  Iioly  sacrifiee, 
)ne prosphcreto  '  (the  latter  word  expresses  the  act  of  offer- 
ing a  sacrifice).     Also,  in  canon  thirteen,  country  priests, 
presbnteroi,  are  not  allowed  to  offer  the   holy  sacrifice, 
prosp/ierein,  '  when  the  bishop  or  town  priests,  presbii^ 
teroi,  are  present.    In  thi-ee  canons  of  the  Council  of  Nice, 
325,  the   word  presbuteros   occurs,  and    Balsamon,  '  the 
Greek    commentator,    treats    it  a   as    convertible    with 
hiereiis.     In  its  eighteenth  canon  '  this  Council  decides 
that    the    bishop    or  presbuteros  should    administer    the 
Eucharist  to  the  deacon,  showing  that  the  presbuteros 
held  a  rank  between  that  of  the  bishop  and  that  of  the 
deacon.     In  the  same  canon  ■'  reference  is  made  X.o  pres- 
buteroi   sacrificing  — prosp/ierein.       In    the    notes  of    the 
Greek    commentators  on  the    Canons   of   the  Apostles 
liiereus   and  presbuteros  are    regarded  as   synonymous.  ' 
The  30th  or  31st  or  32d  of  these  canons  (thev  nre  not 
always  numbered  in  the  same  way)  refers  to  7\.  presbuter- 
os erecting  an  altar  ' — of  course,  it  must  have  been  to  sac- 
rifice.   The  Council  in  TruUo,  convoked  in  692,  speaks  of 
a  ''presbuteros  mixing  water  with  wine,  and  thus  offering 
the    immaculate    sacrifice."  **     'Tis  as  well  to  conclude 
this  array  of  testimony  with  one  or  two  statements  on 
the  part  of  the  schismatical  Greeks.     Thus  their  hierar- 
chy in  1572,  at  the  Council  of  Jerusalem,  declared  that 
the  "  Oriental  Church  teaches  that  no  one  but  a  pious 
Jiiereus  can  consecrate  the  mystery  of  the  divine  Eucha- 

'   Hefele,  Hist,  of  Counc,  vol.  I.,  p.  227.  -  Ibid,  p.  229. 

3  Beverage,  Synodikon,  vol.  I.         ^  Ibid.  '  Ibid.  ''  Ibid. 

"   Ibid.  ■   Ibid.,  p.  192. 


360  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testanient 

rist.."  '  It  further  appears  that  this  Council  employed 
hiereus  and  presbuteros  as  titles  for  the  same  official, 
who,  besides  other  functions,  "  offers  an  unbloody  sacri- 
fice," "  and  that  Metrophanes,  who  was  subsequently 
schismatical  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  treated  hiereus  and 
presbuteros  as  convertible  terms  in  his  "  Confession."  ^ 

East  and  West,  therefore,  Presbuteros,  in  the  course  of 
time  anglicized  into  priest,  meant  a  person  principally  oc- 
cupied in  offering  sacrifice,  and  in  the  East  was  consid- 
ered s3'nonymous  with  hiereus,  while  in  the  West  it  was 
universally  regarded  as  another  name  for  sacereios.  Both 
words,  however,  hiereus  and  sacereios,  corresponded  in 
sense  to  the  Hebrew  Cohen,  and  all  three  were  applied 
to  one  devoted  to  sacred  functions,  especially  that  of 
sacrificing.  But  a  Christian  presbuteros,  on  account  of 
the  victim  he  offered,  was  infinitely  more  of  a  sacrificer 
than  a  eohen  among  the  Jews,  and,  for  the  same  reason 
as  well  as  on  account  of  the  object  of  that  victim,  was 
infinitelv  more  of  a  sacrificer  than  the  hiereus  among  the 
Greeks,  or  the  sacerdos  among  the  Latins,  in  pagan  times. 
Besides,  their  victims  were  immolated  in  a  bloody  man- 
ner, his  in  an  unbloody  manner ;  the  only  Christian 
hiereus  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament  being  Christ 
Himself,  who  is  so  st)'led  '  because  His  sacrifice  was  a 
bloody  one.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  reason  why  the 
Christian  priest,  although  appointed  to  offer  sacrifice  as 
well  as  preach  and  administer  sacraments,  is  never  once 
called  a  hiereus  in  the  New  Testament,  but  alwaysa/rr^- 
buteros.  For,  had  he  been  there  called  a  hiereus,  he  would 
have  been  regarded  by  Jew  and  Gentile  as  a  Jewish  or  a 
pagan  priest,  or  at  least  his  sacrifice,  like  theirs,  would 
have  been  considered  the  bloodv  immolation  of  some 
creature.  And  as  the  principal  function  of  a  Jewish  or 
pagan  priest  was  to  make  offerings  of  that  kind,  it  would 

'  Kimmel,  Moniimenta.  Part  I.,]).  462.  -'  Ibid.    pp.  383  440,  441. 

3  Ibid,    Part  II,,  pp.  13-93.  ■•  Hebrews  v.,  vii. 


And  English  Protestant  Bible.  361 

have  been  supposed  that  the  range  of  the  Christian 
priest's  duties  was  simihirly  circumscribed.  It  be- 
came, therefore,  necessary  to  designate  him  by  some 
title  which,  while  it  seemed  to  distinguish  him  effect- 
ually from  the  mere  butchers  w^ho  officiated  as  priests 
among  Jews  and  Gentiles,  would  indicate  that  his 
sphere  of  action,  as  well  as  of  duty,  w^as  far  wider 
than  that  of  the  Hebrew  coJien,  or  Greek  hiereus.  And 
as  prcsbutcros,  ancient,  or  elder,  if  you  will,  was  a  word 
well  known  to  those  among  whom  the  Christian  priest 
first  appeared,  and  implied  on  the  part  of  those  to  whom 
it  was  applied  the  possession  of  all  such  qualities  as 
would  render  them  venerable  and  influential,  the  name 
was  appropriated  to  those  among  the  followers  of  Christ 
who  were  ordained,  or  solemnly  set  apart  by  the  Apos- 
tles, for  offering  the  Christian  sacrifice  and  cooperating 
with  them  in  propagating  the  Christian  religion. 

To  the  Christian  priest,  therefore,  was  given  the  title 
oi  prcsbnteros.  And  thus,  as  well  in  name  as  in  office, 
he  was  distinguished  from  the  Hebrew  coJien  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  Greek  hiereus  on  the  other.  Nor  was  it 
until  his  character  was  well  understood,  and  there  was 
no  longer  danger  lest  he  might  be  confounded  with 
either  by  the  pagans,  that  he  was  designated  by  any 
other  name.  Not,  therefore,  until  about  the  close  of  the 
second  century  do  we  find  him  styled  a  hiereus  among 
the  Greeks,  and  a  sacerdos  among  the  Latins,  although 
presbnteros  has  clung  to  him  all  along,  and  in  New  Tes- 
tament times  included,  as  we  have  seen,  not  only  him  but 
bishops  and  Apostles.  In  the  early  ages  it,  in  fact,  was 
applied  to  bishops  as  well.  But  for  many  centuries  it  has 
served  as  a  distinctive  title  of  the  Christian  priest.  Here 
it  may  be  remarked,  that  in  the  Scriptures  Christians 
generally  are  called  "  a  holy  priesthood,"  '  "  a  kingly 
priesthood,"  '  and  "  priests."  '       But  it  does  not  follow 

>   I.  I'eter  ii.  5.  '^  Ibid.  9.  '^  Apoc.  v.  10. 


362  Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

that  there  is  no  distinction  between  the  priest  and  other 
Christians ;  the  former  is  really  a  priest  not  only  in 
name  but  by  his  office  ;  the  latter  are  priests  only  in  a 
metaphorical  sense,  whether  as  to  name  or  to  office.  God, 
through  Moses,  said  to  the  children  of  Israel,  "  3'ou  shall 
be  to  me  a  priestl}'  kingdom,"  '  yet  it  is  well  known 
that  among  the  children  of  Israel  the  actual  priesthood, 
with  all  its  rights  and  privileges,  was  jealousiv  restricted 
to  the  descendants  of  Aaron.  To  assert,  therefore,  that 
all  Christians  constitute  a  priesthood,  or  are  priests,  is 
not  to  deny  that  that  there  is  among  them  a  special 
priesthood,  whose  members  are  invested  with  special 
authority  and  perform  functions  peculiar  to  themselves. 
Besides,  it  is  clear  from  many  passages  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament "  that  a  special  priesthood  was  to  be  instituted 
among  the  Gentiles  and  was  to  last  forever. 

But  though,  as  age  succeeded  age,  the  existence  of  a 
Christian  priesthood,  as  the  word  is  now  understood  in 
the  Catholic  Church,  was  a  patent  and  recognized  fact 
wherever  the  Christian  religion  was  professed  in  Great 
Britain  or  elsewhere,  and  thus  demonstrated  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  prophecy  just  referred  to,  the  w 0x6.  priest 
had  been  rendered  by  the  English  reformers  so  odious 
to  the  English  people,  that  it  seems  remarkable  it  did 
not  become,  like  many  another  word,  utterly  obso- 
lete in  the  English  language.  It  is  true  that  the  An- 
glican establishment,  as  it  arranged  its  clergy,  had  among 
them  a  class  the  members  of  which  were  designated 
priests.  But  popular  usage  pronounced  the  arrange- 
ment a  fraud  and  a  delusion,  and  those  aspirants  to 
the  name  as  well  as  the  honor,  which  none  but  a 
genuine  Christian  priest  can  justly  claim,  were  generally 
recognized  by  no  other  title  than  that  of  ministers.  In 
fact,  not  until  very  recently  has  a  very  small  section  of 
the  class  ventured  to  assume  the  name  of  priests;  nor 

^  Ex.  xix.  6.  *  Is.  Ixvii.  21;     Jerem.  xxxiii.  18. 


And  English  Protest  ant  Bible.  363 

are  they  ever  so  called  except  by  themselves  and  a  few 
followers,  who  like  them  belong  to  what  is  known  as  the 
"  ritualistic  school."      The  assumption,  of  course,  was 
quite  unwarranted,  and  must  appear  so  to  every  reader 
who  reflects  that,  as  an  intelligent  Protestant  writer  has 
observed,  "  Priest  is  used  to  express  the  Greek  Jiicreus 
and  the  Latin  sacerdos,  which  in  general  signifies  a  sacri- 
ficer."  '       But  the  Anglicans  among  King  James's  trans- 
lators were  in  no  condition   to  resist  the  will  of  their 
fanatical  associates,  the  ordination  of  whose  preachers, 
elders,  and  deacons  was  as  respectable  and  legitimate 
as  that  of  their  own  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons.      So, 
elder,  not  priest,  popped  up  in  the  "authorized  version," 
wherever  preshnteros,    whether    it    meant    a   Jewish    or 
Christian  minister,  appeared  in  the  original.     Men  who 
had  done  their  best  to  almost  exterminate  the  last  real 
priest  and  abolish  his  sacrifiee  in  England,  and  had  sub- 
stituted for  him  a  counterfeit,  whose  popular  name  was 
not  what  they  without  right  or  reason  claimed  for  him, 
could  not  consistently  contend  with  their  radical  associ- 
ates that  the  presbnteros  of  the  New  Testament  should, 
in  any  case,  be  represented  in  the  Protestant  translation 
by  its  legitimate  derivative,  priest.     So,  wherever  pres- 
bnteros was  found  in  the  original  Greek,  they  submitted 
as  gracefully  as  the)^  could  to  the  interpretation  dictated 
b}^  those   who  detested   prelacy  only  a  little  less   than 
Popery,    and    were    considered   unnecessarily    tolerant 
when  they  did  not  denounce  all  priests  as  ministers  of 
Antichrist.       But  since  the  translators  to  whom   Prot- 
estants are  indebted  for  the  "  authorized  version  "  have 
all  through  selected  elder  as  the  correct  equivalent  for 
presbnteros,  and  the  latest  revisers  of  that  version  have 
adopted  the  same  rendering,  does  it  not  seem  remark- 
able that  the  presbnterion  (priesthood)   of   T.  Tim.   iv.,  14 
should  have  been  rendered /rr^^j'/^rj  by  the  translators, 

'   Worcester's  Dictionary. 


364  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

instead  of  eldersliip,  as  good  an  Anglo-Saxon  word  as 
elder;  and  that  the  inconsistency  should  not  have  been 
removed  by  the  revisers.  But  this,  like  man}-  other 
blemishes  of  the  same  sort,  was  probably  inevitable  in  a 
work  executed  by  a  class  of  scholars  composed  principal- 
ly of  two  factions,  each  of  which  was  mainly  concerned 
in  making  the  word  of  God  reecho  it  own  views,  and  thus 
has  contributed  to  make  the  English  Protestant  Bible 
what  it  is,  a  volume  replete  with  not  only  unintentional 
but  deliberate  perversions  of  the  original. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


A  Reviser  on  the  last  Revision  of  the  Protes- 
tant New  Testament. — Reception  of  the  Re- 
vision BY  Protestant  Readers. 

The  translators  devoted  seven  years  to  the  task  as- 
signed them  by  King  James,  and  the  revisers  fourteen 
to  the  self-imposed  duty  of  correcting  the  mistakes  made 
bv  the  translators.  Yet  the  version  is  still  far  from  being 
what  it  might,  indeed  what  it  ought,  to  be.  We  should 
rather  say,  what  it  certainly  would  have  been  in  the  first 
place,  had  it  been  executed,  or  in  the  last  placed  revised, 
by  scholars  more  anxious  to  reproduce  in  English  the 
spirit  and  sense  of  the  original, than  to  make  that  origi- 
nal subservient  to  the  propagation  of  their  own  dogmat- 
ic views.  That  the  translators  performed  their  task  in 
an  unfaithful,  as  well  as  unsatisfactory  manner,  is  abun- 
dantly proved,  not  only  by  the  preceding  remarks,  but 
by  the  admission  of  the  revisers  in  the  introductions  to 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  and  by  the  voluntary 
statements  '  of  Dr.  Alexander  Roberts  himself,  one  of 
the  English  revisers.  This  writer  notifies  his  readers 
in  one  place,  ^  thAt,  because  the  revisers  made  use  of  an 
amended  Greek  text,  "  a  vast  multitude  of  changes  will 
be  found  in  the  Revised  English  Version"  of  the  New 
Testament.  Next  he  reminds  them  '  of  "  the  entire 
omission  of  the  doxology  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  at  Matt, 
vi.   13,"  so  that  all  English  speaking    Protestants  have 

*   Companion  of  the  Revised  Vers,  of  the  N.  T. 
2  Ch.  iii.  ^  Ch.  v. 

.■«>5 


366  Tlic  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament 

been  all  along  adding  to  that  prayer  words  which  the 
Lord  never  dictated.  Indeed,  they  are  likely  to  continue 
the  practice,  as  the  revision  of  the  authorized  version 
will  probably  never  be  generally  adopted  by  them.  In 
the  same  chapter  Dr.  Roberts,  for  various  reasons  satis- 
factory to  himself,  concludes  that  Mark  xvi.  9-20  "  is 
not  the  immediate  production  of  St.  Mark,"  yet,  strange 
to  say, "  is,  nevertheless,  possessed  of  canonical  authori- 
ty." And  he  adds  that  "  John  vii.  53,  viii.  11,  stands  on 
much  the  same  footing"  and  "  is  probably.  ...  no  part 
of  St.  John's  Gospel."  Now,  when  it  is  further  stated 
in  the  same  chapter  that  ''  I.  John  v.  7,  8,  bearing  upon 
what  is  known  as  '  the  heavenly  witnesses '  has  been 
omitted  in  the  Revised  Version,"  it  must  be  admitted 
that  either  the  revisers  wish  to  withdraw  several  im- 
portant passages  of  the  Holy  Scripture  from  Protes- 
tants, or  that  the  latter,  in  their  simplicity,  have  all 
along  been  imposed  upon  by  King  James's  translators, 
who,  either  through  ignorance  or  malice,  have  inserted 
in  the  authorized  version  a  number  of  paragraphs  which 
were  never  written  by  an  Apostle  or  other  inspired 
author. 

Add  to  all  this,  that  the  same  writer  '  confesses  that 
"  there  are  cases  in  which  they  (the  translators)  have 
gone  quite  astray  in  the  meaning  assigned  to  the  Greek." 
Of  this  he  gives  ample  proof.  Thus  of  one  rendering 
he  is  compelled  to  confess,  "  it  is  certain  this  is  quite  a 
mistake  ;  "  of  another,  it  "  completely  perverts  the  mean- 
ing." In  another  case  he  says,  "  the  authorized  version 
is  a  very  inexact  rendering  of  the  Greek  verb."  Again, 
referring  to  Luke  ix.  32,  he  admits  that  "this  verse  is 
quite  misrepresented  by  the  authorized  version."  Of 
John  ix.  17  he  observes  that  "here  the  authorized 
version  is  scarcely  intelligible."  Acts  ii.  3,  -  "  the  author- 
ized   version    is  here    quite    wrong.     Acts  iii.   19,  20, — 

1  Ch.  i.,  Oil  the  Coyrection  of  Mistakes  in  the  Meaning  of  Greek  Ifonfs. 


And  Revisers  on  the  English  Protestant  Version.      367 

*' an  impossible  translation  here  occurs  in  the  authorized 
version."  Acts  xxvi.  28, — "  it  is  with  some  reluctance 
that  we  here  abandon  the  rendering  of  the  authorized  ver- 
sion." Rom.  iii.  25, — here  the  rendering  of  the  author- 
ized version,  "  besides  being  ahnost  unintelligible. ...  is 
an  utterly  impossible  version  of  the  Greek."  Thus  the 
unsparing  but  honest  critic  continues  to  expose  the 
pfross  faults  of  the  authorized  version  book  bv  book  ot 
its  New  Testament,  from  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  to  the 
Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  so  that  his  Protestant  readers 
must  find  it  impossible  to  escape  the  conclusion,  that 
the  volume,  which  they  supposed  to  be  inspired,  is  after 
all  but  a  clumsy  counterfeit  of  God's  holy  word.  Dr. 
Roberts  furthermore  asserts  in  the  chapter  where  the 
preceding  extracts  are  found,  that  in  one  instance  "  the 
authorized  version  contradicts  itself,"  and  he  proves  the 
charge.  Impossible,  erroneous,  absurd,  zvrong.  etc.,  are  the 
qualifying  terms  applied  to  the  manner,  in  which  a  great 
many  texts  have  been  rendered  in  the  authorized  ver- 
sion. But  enough  has  been  said  on  the  gross  mistakes, 
of  which  the  translators  were  guilty  in  the  meaning  of 
Greek  words. 

The  critic  of  the  authorized  version  next  proceeds  to 
point  out  the  corrections,  which  the  revisers  had  to 
make  of  the  mistakes  committed  by  the  translators  in 
Greek  grammar.  And,  inexact,  ignorant,  guilty  of  every 
possible  variety  of  error,  blundering,  exaggerated,  misstating 
of  faets,  ineonsistent,  eonfused,  mistranslating,  erroneous, 
impossible  are  among  the  expressions,  by  which  he  char- 
acterizes the  blunders  of  the  translators  in  this  part  of 
their  work.  Dr.  Roberts's  Companion  is  supplemented 
by  a  lengthy  statement  from  a  member  of  the  American 
Committee  on  "the  English  Version  of  161 1,  the  Canter- 
bury Revision  of  1870,  the  American  cooperation  in 
that  revision,  the  Constitution  of  the  American  Commit- 
tee, the  Relation  of  the  American  and  English  Commit- 


368  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

tees,  and  the  American  part  in  the  joint  work."  Then 
follows  a  list  of  American  suggestions  adopted.  Another 
list  of  American  suggestions  rejected  is  appended,  ac- 
cording to  agreement,  to  the  New  Testament  itself. 
But  few  of  the  suggestions  made  by  the  Americans 
were  adopted  by  the  English  Committee,  which,  having 
inaugurated  the  work  as  well  as  provided  for  its  publi- 
cation, claimed,  at  least  exercised,  the  right  of  deciding 
its  character.  As  just  observed,  the  readings,  render- 
ings, and  changes  proposed  by  the  American  revisers, 
but  rejected  by  their  English  associates,  are  printed  at 
the  end  of  the  New  Testament  and  number  at  least  some 
300.  A  similar  list  of  suggestions  made  by  the  Ameri- 
cans on  the  version  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  rejected 
by  the  Anglicans,  is  published  by  mutual  agreement  at 
the  end  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  shows  that  in  nearly 
800  instances  the  emendations,  which  seemed  to  our 
countrymen  necessary  for  correcting  or  improving  the 
English  Protestant  Old  Testament,  were  considered 
unsatisfactory  by  the  English  Committee.  Many  of  the 
changes  proposed  by  the  Americans,  whether  in  the  Old 
or  New  Testament,  deserved  little  consideration.  But 
not  a  few  of  them,  had  they  been  adopted,  would  have 
rendered  the  Revised  Version  much  less  objectionable 
and  certainly  much  more  intelligible  than  it  is.  The 
Americans  exhibited  a  commendable  desire  to  have  the 
version  not  only  corrected  but  modernized,  yet  many 
of  their  suggestions  savor  strongly  of  the  radical  princi- 
ples avowed  by  the  Puritans,  whose  influence  is  percept- 
ible all  through  that  version.  The  English  revisers,  re- 
strained by  their  traditional  respect,  even  for  the 
blunders  and  perversions  of  King  James's  Bible,  and  ap- 
prehending lest  wholesale  changes  in  the  text,  such  as 
a  due  regard  for  the  original  demanded,  might  seriously 
affect  their  liturgical  books,  declined  in  several  instances 
to  correct  errors  which  they  must  have  perceived  to  be 


And  Revisers  on  tJte  English  Protcstcvit  Version.     369 

gross  and  misleadini^.  Both  committees  seem  to  have 
decided  at  tlie  start,  to  ignore  ahnost  every  one  of  the 
corruptions  introduced  into  the  authorized  version  by 
its  authors  for  the  express  purpose  of  sanctioning  their 
own  religious  behef,  as  distinguished  from  the  creed 
of  the  Catholic  Cluirch. 

The  Enghsh,  as  well  as  the  American  revisers,  can 
hardly  find  language  sufficient  to  express  thein admira- 
tion of  the  authorized  version.     Yet  it  is  evident  not 
only  from  what  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  pages  of 
the  present  work,  but  from  the  voluntary  admission  of 
the  revisers  themselves,  that  the  faults  of  that  version 
are  multitudinous  and  grave,  and  withal  clearly  betray  a 
fixed  pu2-pose  of  misrepresenting  the  sense  of  the  origi- 
nal, whenever  that  sense  conflicted  with  the  religious 
belief  of   the  translators.     Some   of   its  faults   may  no 
doubt  be  attributed  to  ignorance,  but  these  must  be  ex- 
ceedingly few  ;  since,  besides  various  other  sources  of  in, 
formation,  they  had  access  to  and  actually  made  use  of  the 
Rhemish  version  of  the  New  Testament  published  iu 
1582,  and  of  the  Douay  version  of  the  Old  Testament,, 
which  made  its  appearance  in  1610.    This  English  Cath- 
olic" version  of  the  Bible  was  made  by  learned  refugees 
from   England.     All  reference  to  it  is  omitted   in   the 
enumeration  of  the  English  versions,  which,  King  James's 
translators  say,  they  consulted  while  preparing  the  au- 
thorized version.     But  that,  while  engaged  on  that  ver- 
sion, they  profited  by  the  labors  of  those  scholars  who 
had  already  provided  the  Catholics  of  England  with  an 
excellent  Bible,  is  sufficiently  attested  by  the  version  it, 
self.     Indeed,  the  fact  is  admitted  in  the  preface  to  "  the 
Revised  Version"  of   the  New   Testament,  and   in    the 
*'  Companion  to  the  Revised  Version."  '     And  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that,  had  King  James's  translators  gen- 
erally followed  the  Douay  Version,  the  convocation  of 

'  P.  157,  note. 


3/0  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

Canterbury  would  have  been  saved  the  trouble  of  inau- 
gurating a  movement  for  the  purpose  of  expurgating 
the  English  Protestant  Bible  of  the  errors  and  cor- 
ruptions by  which  its  pages  are  defiled;  though  even 
then  it  might  have  been  found  necessary  to  remove 
from  that  Bible  various  typographical  mistakes,  and  a 
vast  number  of  variations,  almost  24000  of  the  latter 
having  been  discovered  by  a  committee  of  the  American 
Bible  Society,  while  examining  only  six  different  edi- 
tions of  the  authorized  version. ' 

As  already  remarked,  the  English  revisers  were  not 
at  all  disposed  to  go  as  far  as  their  American  colabor- 
ers  in  removing  the  very  objectionable  features,  which 
both  recognized  in  their  common  Bible.  Many  words 
in  that  book  are  no  longer  English,  and  ai-e  no  longer 
understood  by  common  readers.  Some  are  used,  if  used 
at  all  in  writing  or  conversation,  only  by  persons  lost  to 
all  sense  of  shame  and  delicacy  ;  others  are  used  in  such 
a  way  as  to  bid  defiance  to  the  plainest  principles  of 
syntax.  Against  all  such  monstrosities  the  American 
revisers  protested,  but  protested  in  vain.  Hence  Eng- 
lish speaking  Protestants  still  read  in  their  Bible  zvhich 
instead  of  who,  where  the  reference  is  to  persons  or 
even  to  God,  Matt.  vi.  9;  astonied  instead  of  astonished, 
Is.  lii.  14 ;  and  must  be  shocked  when,  instead  of  Jiarlot 
and  its  correlative  terms,  they  come  across  words 
which  would  defile  the  pages  of  any  modern  book.  Ex- 
amples of  this  will  be  found  in  the  authorized,  even  re- 
vised version,  at  Lev.  xxi.  7,  Deut.  xxiii.  17,  Pro  v.  vi. 
26,  xxiii.  27,  etc.  The  minister  who  may  have  to  read 
these  and  similar  passages  to  his  congregation,  as  well 
as  the  congregation  itself  which  listens  to  him,  are  to  be 
pitied.  Then  we  have  the  unintelligible  word  lian  sub- 
stituted by  the  revisers  for  the  plain  word  lain  of  the  ver- 
sion in  Num.  v.  20;  and  in  Exod.  xxxix.    i-^.ouches,  ap- 

'   Co'iipaiiiot!  to  ihc  Revised  Veisioit.,  p.  i6o,  note. 


And  Revisers  on  the  English  Protest ani  I'ersion.     371 

parently  unknown  to  common  English  readers,instcad  of 
settings.  The  English  revisers  made  a  remarkable  change 
in  Gen.  xv.  2.  There  the  authorized  version  had  "  Elie- 
zer  of  Damascus."  But  "  Dammesek  Eliezer"  was  sub- 
stituted for  it.  The  Americans  insisted  that  in  this  place 
no  change  should  be  made  in  the  authorized  version,  but 
were  overruled.  They  also  endeavored  in  Num.  iv.  9 
and  II.  Paral.  iv.  21  to  have  tongs  replaced  by  snuffers,  but 
failed,  though  the}-  were  right.  In  I,  Kings  xxx.  13 
they  tried  to  introduce  ago  for  agone ;  but  the  Anglicans 
were  inexorable  ;  also  occurrence  instead  oioccurrent  in  III. 
Kings  V.  4,  but  were  again  foiled  ;  and  xiv.  3,  cakes  for 
cracknels — in  vain,  however.  Strange,  is  it  not,  that  they 
did  not  propose  crackers  as  a  substitute  ?  The  word  is 
in  common  use  and  fairly  well  expresses  what  was  once 
meant  by  the  now  obsolete  word  cracknels,  which  the 
obstinate  English  refused  to  surrender.  Our  fellow  cit- 
izens also  proposed  attired  instead  of  tired  in  IV.  Kings 
ix.  30,  but  the  old  word  still  holds  its  ground.  And  in 
II.  Paral.  xxxvi.  3  fined  instead  of  amerced.  But  the 
amendment  was  rejected.  Siieezings  instead  of  neezings, 
in  Job  xli.  18,  met  a  similar  fate.  Betray  for  bezvray,  Is.  xvi. 
3  ;  rely  for  stay,  Is.  xxxi.  i  ;  in  Nahum  ii.  7  beating  for 
tabering  (a  word  which  has  escaped  the  lexicographers) ; 
all  these  substitutes,  as  well  as  many  others  tending  to 
render  the  authorized  version  at  least  intelligible,  were 
rejected  and  relegated  to  an  appendix. 

The  suggestions  of  the  American  Committee  regard- 
ing what  it  considered  necessary  corrections  of  the  New 
Testament  in  the  authorized  version,  were,  like  those  it 
subsequently  made  in  reference  to  the  Old  Testament, 
some  of  them  adopted.  But  a  great  number,  some  of 
them  commendable,  others  quite  objectionable,  were 
assigned,  as  had  been  agreed  upon,  to  an  appendix, 
where  the  intelligent  reader  is  enabled  to  pass  upon  their 
merits.     It  seems,  however,  that,  as  the  Americans  con- 


372  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

sented  that  all  of  their  suggestions  not  satisfactory  to 
the  Anglicans  should  be  relegated  to  an  appendix  ;  the 
Anglicans  should  have  condescended  to  group  together 
in  the  same  way  all  of  theirs,  which  were  not  approved 
by  the  Americans.  But  as  the  latter  seem  to  have  per- 
ceived nothing  unfair  in  the  arrangement  actually  car- 
ried out,  a  disinterested  critic  has  no  right  to  complain. 
Among  the  obsolete  words  which  occur  in  the  New 
Testament  of  the  authorized  version,  and  the  meaning  of 
which  few  English  readers  now  understand,  \skolpen  for 
helped,  in  Luke  i.  54.  Here  the  revisers  made  no  change. 
To  this  may  be  added  zvot.  This  word  is  found,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Acts  vii.  40,  and  there  belongs  to  a  quotation 
from  Ex.  xxxii.  i  ;  knoiv  is  its  modern  equivalent.  The 
translators  of  King  James,  having  employed  zuot  in  Exo- 
dus, at  least  consistently  made  use  of  it  in  Acts.  But 
the  Anglican  revisers,  although  deploring  the  incon- 
sistencies of  the  translators,  after  substituting  knoiv  for 
wot  in  Exodus,  have  very  inconsistently  retained  ivot  in 
Acts.  While  castingthe  mote  out  of  their  brother's  eye, 
they  forgot  to  remove  the  beam  from  their  own.  Wist  for 
knezv  still  obscures  the  sense  of  Acts  xxiii.  5  in  the  re- 
vised as  well  as  the  authorized  version.  And  no  intelli- 
gible word  has  been  substituted  by  the  revisers  for  hal- 
ing, which  King  James's  translat(jrs  wrote  in  Acts  viii.  3, 
and  which  might  well  have  been  replaced  by  dragging, 
as  found  in  the  Rhemish  version.  When  the  English 
revisers  decided  on  retaining  all  such  obsolete  and  bar- 
barous words,  they  should  at  least  have  explained  them 
in  the  foot-notes  which  accompanv  their  work.  Then 
look  at  the  impropriety  of  using  of  ior  by,  as  in  Matt.  iii. 
13,  14  and  elsewhere,  a  construction  so  frequent  in  the 
authorized  version  and  even  in  its  revision  ;  twain  for  two, 
as  in  Matt.  v.  41,  and  so  left  in  the  revision  ;  meat  iorfood, 
in  Matt.  vi.  25,  where  the  revisers  substituted  the  proper 
word  ;  for  before  the  infinitive   mood,  as  for  to  be  scen^ 


And  Revisers  on  t/ie  English  Protestant  Version,      t^-ji 

Matt,  xxiii.  5,  a  solecism  retained  by  tiie  revisers  ;  his 
applied  to  a  tree,  in  INIatt.  xxiv.  32,  but  for  some  reason 
or  other  replaced  by  h.cr  in  the  revision  ;  thev  be  for 
they  arc,  a  construction  so  frequent  that  it  is  unneces- 
sary to  cite  examples ;  spake  for  spoke,  as  in  John  vii. 
13  and  elsewhere;  every  ivJiit  instead  of  ^vho/e,  as  in 
John  vii.  23.  Besides,  far  too  much  use  has  been  made 
of  italics  in  the  authorized  version.  They  were  in- 
tended to  supplv  something  supposed  to  be  wanting  in 
the  original.  But  their  employment  for  any  such  pur- 
pose is  an  assumption  of  authority  hardly  to  be  tolerated 
in  any  translator.  King  James's  translators  have  exer- 
cised it  quite  too  often,  and  not  always  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  true  sense  contained  in  the  original.  In 
John  viii.  6  they  have  interpolated  in  this  way  quite  a 
sentence,  as  though  he  heard  them  int.  These  words 
have  been  very  properly  omitted  b}-  the  revisers,  for  there 
is  nothing  like  them  expressed  or  implied  in  the  original. 
Even  were  the  authorized  version  a  fair  equivalent  of 
the  original  which  it  claims  to  represent,  the  few  ex- 
amples already  cited,  and  which  could  be  indefinitely 
multiplied,  prove  that  it  is  not  by  any  means  adapted  to 
the  intellectual  wants  of  that  comparatively  large  class 
of  Protestant  readers  which,  possessed  of  only  a  common 
education,  sincerely  desires  to  obtain  a  kncnvledge  of 
God's  revealed  word.  This  same  remark  applies,  but 
of  course  with  less  force,  to  the  recent  revision  of  that 
version.  It  must  therefore  be  an  occasion  of  profound 
regret  to  all  classes  of  Protestants  that,  when  the  grave 
and  numerous  defects  of  King  James's  Bible  were  gener- 
ally felt,  and  often  publiclv  acknowledged  by  the  learned 
among  its  readers,  and  as  a  consequence  Protestant 
scholars  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  under- 
took a  revision  of  that  Bible,  these  revisers  failed  not 
only  to  correct  many  of  its  statements  in  which  it  out- 
rageously falsified  the  sacred  originals,  but  to  substitute 


374  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

intelligible  English  for  the  almost  innumerable  obsolete 
words  and  expressions  with  which  it  abounds.  English 
speaking  Protestants  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New, 
when  it  was  known  that  the  work  of  revision  had  been 
decided  on,  at  least  all  of  them  who,  without  being  high- 
ly educated,  were  able  to  read,  did  not  anticipate  any 
change  in  the  sense  of  the  authorized  version,  for  they 
believed  that  ever)-  sentence  it  contained  was  as  true  as 
anything  which  Moses  or  the  Prophets  or  the  Apostles 
ever  wrote,  or  even  the  Lord  Himself  ever  spoke.  But 
they  certainly  did  expect  that  its  language  would  be  so 
intelligible,  that  in  order  to  thorougly  understand  it  they 
Avould  be  no  longer  compelled  to  provide  themselves  with 
a  dictionary  containing  such  Anglo-Saxon  words  as  were 
still  current  in  some  districts  of  England  about  the  be- 
ginning of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  have  long 
ceased  to  be  spoken,  indeed,  are  no  longer  understood, 
even  by  many  well-educated  people.  Such  Catholics, 
also,  as  might  have  taken  any  interest  in  the  matter,  no 
doubt  entertained  the  same  expectation.  For  to  them 
it  must  have  seemed  quite  inconsistent,  indeed  intolera- 
ble, that  scholars  who  as  controversialists  charged  the 
Church  of  Rome,  untruthfully,  however,  with  withold- 
ing  the  Scriptures  fi'om  Catholics,  should  themselves 
persist  any  longer  in  providing  their  followers  with  no 
other  copy  of  the  Bible  than  one  which  was  not  only 
false,  but  couched  in  a  language  much  of  which  was 
not  understood  by  those  followers  for  several  preceding 
generations. 

These  hopes  of  what  the  revision  would  be,  and  in- 
deed should  have  been,  so  far  as  concerned  its  idiom, 
proved  fallacious.  Yet  they  secured  an  immense  demand 
for  the  New  Testament  revision,  which  was  the  first  part 
of  the  work  published.  As- soon  as  it  appeared,  in 
1881,  it  was  placed  for  sale  in  almost  every  citv  and 
town  in  the  United    States,  and  met    with  readv  pur- 


And  Revisers  on  the  English  Protestant  Version.     373 

chasers.  The  ])ublic  curiosity  to  examine  it  was  almost 
universal.  And  every  one  who  shared  in  the  feeling 
could  have  it  gratified  for  a  mere  trifle — ten,  fifteen,  or 
twenty-five  cents  at  most.  In  the  language  of  the  trade, 
no  book  had  ever  such  a  run.  Tiavellers  in  i-ailroad 
cars  and  steamboats,  guests  at  hotels,  visitors  at  places 
of  public  resort,  found  it  within  easy  reach,  and,  if  not 
carried  away  by  the  curiosit}-  that  had  seized  on  almost 
all,  had  the  volume  thrust  upon  them.  No  dime  novel 
had  ever  such  success  among  common  readers,  while 
those  whose  tastes  craved  something  more  solid  than 
fictitious  literature,  devoted  for  a  while,  and  probably 
many  of  them  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  their  lei- 
sure moments  to  the  perusal  of  what  was  presented  to 
them  as  the  New  Testament,  a  book  of  which  they  might 
have  heard,  but  which  very  likely  they  had  never  before 
read  or  even  opened.  The  excitement,  however,  soon 
subsided.  The  market  had  been  glutted.  And  book- 
sellers, having  discerned  to  their  grief  that  the  demand 
fell  far  short  of  the  supply,  were  glad  to  dispose  of  the 
stock  on  hand  at  any  price.  Practically  the  book  had 
ceased  to  be  saleable,  and.  present  indications  render 
it  extremely  improbable  that  the  revision,  whether  for 
private  or  public  use,  will  ever  supplant  the  original 
version  among  English  speaking  Protestants. 

When  in  1885  the  revision  of  the  Old  Testament  was 
published,  its  appearance  attracted  very  little  attention. 
The  Protestant  public  had  been  sadly  disappointed  in 
its  expectations  regarding  the  revision  of  the  New.  In 
that  part  of  the  work  the  revisers  had  consulted  their 
own  views,  not  the  wishes  and  wants  of  their  readers. 
Many  of  the  latter  seem  to  have  read  and  studied  that 
part  carefully  from  beginning  to  end  before  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  revision  was  announced,  and 
even  to  have  studiously  compared  it  with  their  old  family 
bibles.     The}'  communicated  the  results  of  their  inves- 


3/6  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

ligation  to  the  public  press,  and  in  several  instances  ap- 
pear to  have  been  shocked  at  the  to  them  unexpected  and 
startling  changes  made  in  a  work  which  they  supposed 
incapable  of  improvement,  and  which  they  honestly  re- 
garded as  an  immovable  foundation,  whereon  to  rest 
their  religious  belief.  Nor  were  they  in  any  way  loath  to 
express  themselves,  as  if  thev  felt  that  the  ground  on 
which  they  were  standing  had  suddenh'  given  wa}' ;  one 
of  these  honest,  plodding  investigators,  for  example,  as- 
tounded at  the  discovery  he  had  made,  startled  the  read- 
ers of  a  paper  which  enjoyed  his  patronage  bv  telling 
them  that  in  Rev.  viii.  13.  the  revisers  had  substituted 
an  eagle  for  the  angel  of  King  James's  translation  ;  what 
effect  this  announcement  had  on  those  who  read  it  is  not 
known.  But  the  unsophisticated  critic  was  right.  For 
King  James's  translators,  in  this  instance,  had  been  im- 
posed upon  by  Coverdale's  Bible,  when  they  should  have 
been  guided  by  the  authorit}-  of  the  Rhemish  New 
Testament  and  the  best  manuscripts.  Other  critics,  more 
or  less  competent  to  decide  on  the  merits  of  the  revi- 
sion, commented  in  the  same  way  on  many  of  the  mutila- 
tions, corrections,  and  changes  which,  as  already  indicat- 
ed in  the  preceding  pages  of  the  present  work,  were 
made  by  the  revisers  in  the  course  of  their  labors.  The 
sale  of  the  revised  Old  Testament  was  therefore  dull  and 
unprofitable,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  New.  In 
fact,  very  few  of  the  laity  secured  copies  of  the  former. 
Their  experience  had  taught  them  a  lesson,  and  they 
profited  by  it.  Ministers,  by  tacit  or  express  agreement 
among  themselves,  frequently  read  portions  of  the  re- 
vised New  Testament  to  their  congregations.  But  the 
members,  it  is  understood,  still  reverently  cling  to  the 
antiquated  fetich  which  their  forefathers  set  up,  and  will 
probably  never  accept  in  its  stead  the  substitute  pro- 
posed by  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury. 

Intelligent  Protestants,  who,  like  the  revisers  of  the 


And RcvistTS  on  the  English  Protcstaiil  Wrsion.      i" 

authorized  version,  are  aware  of    the  many  important 
differences  between  it  and  the  Bible,  even  as  preserved 
in  the  existing  Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  who  are  thor- 
oughly conversant  with  the  effects  produced  by  that  ver- 
sion, as  well  as  others  originating  in  the  Reformation, 
may  well  seriously  doubt  whether  much,  if  anything, 
has  been  gained  to  Christian  society  in  consequence  of 
that  religious  movement.     The  loss  is  patent  ;  the  gain, 
where  is  it?     Time  was  when  Christendom  presented  a 
united  front  against  infidelity  and  all  forms  of  religious 
error;  when  throughout  the  West  as  well  as  the  East 
the    professors  of    the  Christian  religion    had  but    one 
creed,  sat  under  the  same  pulpit,  and  knelt  around  thc 
same  altar.    That  was  the  golden  age  of  Christian  faith. 
It  ceased,  but  not  entirely,  until  fraudulent  travesties, 
instead  of  honest  translations,  of  the  Holy  Scriptures 
were  placed  by  the  reformers  in  the  hands  of  all,  and 
every  one  who  could  read  was  told  that  to  interpret  those 
counterfeits  of    the  divine   oracles  was   his  inalienable 
rip-ht.     One  of  these  travesties  has  been  the  subject  of 
the  preceding    remarks.      The    foundation  of    its  New 
Testament  was,  as  the  revisers  admit, '  laid  by  Tyndale, 
whose  version  was  cast  in  the  same  mould  with  Luther's, 
while  its  Old  Testament  was  modelled  principally  after 
that  of  Coverdale,  whose  "  Bible,"  according  to  the  title 
prefixed  to  it  by  himself,  was  "  faithfully  translated  out 
of  Douch  '  and  Latyn  into  English,  MDXXXV."  ="    Pre- 
vious to  the  period  in  which  those  perversions  of  God's 
holy  word  appeared,  the  people  of  England,  in  matters 
of  religion,  were  as  a  nation  of  one  mind  and  of  one 
speech.     But  what   a   change    since !     What   domestic 
wars  !     What  political  contests  !    What  religious  strife  ! 
What  rabid  fanaticism  !     What  multitudes  driven  into 

1   See  their  Preface  to  New  Testament.  -   Luther's  German  Bible. 

'  Title-page  of  Cuverdale".s  Bible  in  edition  preserved  in  the  Earl  of  I.eices- 
cr"s  library  at  Holkham. 


3/8  -         The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

exile,  impoverished,  imprisoned,  tortured,  butchered, 
gibbeted,  and  all  to  a  great  extent  in  consequence  of 
dishonest  versions  made  of  the  Bible,  and  made  for  the 
purpose  of  maintaining  errors  never  before  broached, 
or  broached  only  to  be  condemned  by  the  Christian 
Church. 

Besides,  is  it  too  much  to  say  that,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  jealousy  and  strife  fostered,  if  not  engendered, 
by  such  versions,  India,  China,  and  Japan  would  have 
long  since  been  converted  to  the  Christian  faith ;  that 
the  dark  continent  of  Africa  would  have  been  evangel- 
ized and  civilized  ;  that  the  arms  of  Europe,  united  by 
common  interests  as  well  as  a  common  Bible,  would 
have  crushed  out  Tslamism,  or  confined  it  to  the  home 
of  the  wild  hordes  which  were  the  first  to  embrace  it  ; 
and  that  the  savage  aborigines  of  the  lands  discovered 
in  recent  times  w^ould  have  been,  most  of  them,  already 
organized  into  prosperous  communities  or  powerful 
kingdoms?  These  results  would  not  be  greater  than 
those  which,  under  the  benign  influence  of  a  common 
creed  and  a  uniform  Bible,  attested  the  wonderful  prog- 
ress of  Christianity  from  the  first  to  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, in  spite  of  the  combined  forces  of  Judaism  and 
Gentilism  ;  and  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the 
former  results,  commencing  with  the  sixteenth,  would 
have  been  accomplished  by  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  had  it  not  been  for  the  dissensions  fanned  into 
destructive  flames,  if  not  into  life,  by  the  unfaithful  and 
ill-omened  version  of  Martin  Luther  and  that  other,  pro- 
duced by  his  worthy  English  imitators  Tyndale,  Cover- 
dale,  and  Co.  Here,  then,  we  have  on  the  one  hand  the 
actual  and  probable  losses  resulting  to  the  cause  of 
Christianity  and  civilization  from  the  baneful  influence 
of  King  James's  translation  in  particular,  because  its  in- 
fluence was  not  merly  insular  or  continental,  but  cosmo- 
politan to  a  certain  extent.      But  where,  on  the  other 


And  Revisers  on  the  EnglisJi  Protestant  I'ersion.     379 

hand,  are  we  to  look  for  the  profits  which  man,  as  a 
member  of  society  or  as  a  pilgrim  for  eternity,  has  de- 
rived from  that  or  all  other  translations  produced  by 
the  Reformation?  If  it  and  they  had  never  been  writ- 
ten, would  the  state  of  human  society  be  worse  than  it 
now  actually  is?  Rather,  would  not  many  a  page  of 
human  history,  instead  of  redounding  as  at  present  to  the 
disgrace  of  Christianity,  be  filled  with  a  brilliant  record 
of  noble  deeds  done  to  elevate  the  human  race,  and  of 
glorious  sacrifices  perfornied  for  the  sake  of  our  com- 
mon Lord  ? 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


The  Anglo-Catholic  Bible. 

Since  the  religious  revolution  which  wrenched  Eng- 
land from  the  centre  of  ecclesiastical  unity,  the  Catho- 
lics of  that  country,  and  those  who  speak  the  same 
language  elsewhere,  have,  so  far  as  the  Scriptures  are 
concerned,  been  much  better  provided  for  than  those 
Protestants  who,  whether  from  choice  or  necessity, 
were  restricted  to  the  use  of  such  a  translation  as  had 
been  executed  under  the  auspices  of  King  James  I. 
For,  though  the  Rheims  version  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  the  Douay  version  of  the  Old,  were  not  free  from 
defects,  those  defects,  unlike  the  intentional  perversions 
in  the  English  Protestant  Bible,  were  in  no  instance  the 
result  of  a  settled  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  translators 
to  extort  from  the  sacred  text  arguments  favorable  to 
their  own  belief,  or  condemnatory  of  doctrines  which 
they  rejected.  The  New  Testament  of  this  version  was 
published  at  Rheims  in  1582,  and  the  Old  at  Douay  in 
1609-1610,  both  being  the  work  of  Dr.  Martin  Gregory, 
who  was  a  convert,  and  had  been  educated  at  St.  John's 
College,  Oxford.  In  preparing  the  version  he  was  as- 
sisted by  Dr.  William  (afterwards  Cardinal)  Allen,  Dr. 
Richard  Bristow,  and  John  Reynolds,  all  of  them,  like 
Martin  himself,  trained  at  the  University  of  Oxford. 
Their  version  is  commonly  called  the  Douay  Bible, 
although,  while  its  Old  Testament  was  published  at 
Douay,  its  New  Testament  was  published  at  Rheims. 
The  reason  why  it  was  so,  was  this.     The  EngHsh  Col- 


The  Doiiay  Bible.  381 

lege  was  founded  at  Douay  in  1568  by  the  efforts  of 
Cardinal  Allen,  but  on  account  of  political  troubles  was 
removed  some  years  afterwards  to  Rhcims,  whence  the 
translators,  having  published  their  New  Testament,  re- 
turned with  the  college  to  Douay  and  there  completed 
and  published  their  Old  Testament.  To  the  entii-e  ver- 
sion were  added  notes  ;  those  on  the  New  Testament 
were  written  by  Bristow  and  Allen ;  those  on  the  Old, 
by  Dr.  Thomas  Worthington. 

This  Anglo-Catholic  Bible  was  a  translation  of  the 
Latin  Vulgate,  the  best  model,  no  doubt,  in  the  opinion 
of  its  authors,  which  could  have  been  selected  for  their 
purpose,  not  only  because  for  many  centuries  it  had 
been  universally  used  throughout  the  West,  but  for  the 
more  special  reason  that  the  Council  of  Trent  had 
declared  that  it  was  to  be  held  for  authentic.  Some 
have  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  Latin  Vulgate  is 
almost  coeval  with  the  Apostles,  its  Old  Testament  hav- 
ing been  translated  fi-om  the  Septuagint,  and  its  New 
from  the  original  Greek,  both  being  retouched  by  St. 
Jerome  about  the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  Others 
believe  that  it  is  a  mixture  of  that  earliest  translation, 
of  the  corrections  made  therein  by  St.  Jerome  accord- 
ing to  the  Hexaplar  text  of  the  Septuagint,  of  St.  Je- 
rome's own  version,  and  of  the  corrections  made  by  him 
:n  the  text  of  the  New  Testament.  The  common  opin- 
ion, however,  is,  that  our  present  Vulgate  is  that  actual 
version  which  was  the  work  of  St.  Jerome,  he  having 
translated  the  protocanonical  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment from  the  Hebrew,  with  Tobias  an'd  Judith  from 
the  Chaldee,  and  having  with  the  aid  of  Greek  manu- 
scripts corrected  the  text  of  the  existing  Latin  New 
Testament,  but  leaving  the  books  of  Wisdom,  Ecclesias- 
ticus,  Baruch,  the  two  books  of  Machabees,  with  deu- 
tero  Esther  and  Daniel,  as  he  found  them  in  the  Old 
Latin  Bible,  which  had  all  along  been  current  through- 


382  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

out  the  West.  This  Latin  Bible,  which  preceded  the  age 
of  St.  Jerome  by  about  two  centuries,  was  called  by  him 
Vulgata,  '  by  St.  Augustine  Itala, '  and  by  St.  Gregory 
the  Great  Vetiis. '  That,  with  the  exception  of  the  few 
books  retained  from  it  and  just  mentioned,  the  existing 
Vulgate  is  the  production  of  St.  Jerome,  seems  morally 
certain;  else,  why  should  Jerome's  prefaces  have  been  all 
along  prefixed  to  the  books,  until  near  the  end  of  the  six- 
teenth centur}',  when  it  was  directed  by  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  that  these  prefaces  should  be  collected  together 
and  prefixed  or  appended  to  the  sacred  volume  as  they 
are  generally  now  found,  and  thus  all  extraneous  matter 
be  separated  effectually  from  the  divine  text.  This 
single  reason,  though  not  the  only  one  that  could  be 
urged,  should  remove  all  doubt  with  regard  to  a  Hiero- 
nymian  authorship. 

But  whether  the  existing  Vulgate  be  the  exclusive 
work  of  St.  Jerome  or  not,  it  is  evident  that,  even  apart 
from  the  solemn  sanction  given  it  by  the  Church,  no 
more  faithful  copy  of  the  Scriptures  as  at  first  dictated 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  could  have  been  selected  by  the 
Anglo-Catholic  translators,  as  a  standard  in  prosecuting 
the  task  they  had  undertaken.  For  it  was  the  out- 
growth of  manuscripts,  Hebrew,  Chaldaic,  and  Greek, 
which  had  been  written,  studied,  and  collated,  more  than 
a  thousand  years  before,  by  men  familiar  with  the  lan- 
guages in  which  the  revealed  word  had  been  originally 
communicated.  Of  the  two  last  classes  of  manuscripts 
it  would  be  difficult  to  prove,  that  any  older  than  the 
fourth  century'remained  when  King  James's  translation 
was  written.  But  it  is  certain  that  not  a  single  one  of 
the  first,  near  so  old  as  that,  remained  at  that  time,  at 
least  in  the  hands  of  Christians.  At  present  there  is 
none  to  be  found  older  than  the  tenth  century.     King 

'  In  cap.  xiv.,  29.  xliv.  5,  6.  Isaise.  *  De  Doci.  Christ.  L.  ii.  c.  15. 

^  Ep.  ad  I.eandrum  ante  Mor.  prtefix.  c.  v. 


The  Doiiay  Bible.  383 

James's  translators,  therefore,  had  to  rely  on  Hebrew 
manuscripts  more  recent  by  several,  probably  twelve, 
centuries  than  those  after  which  the  Vulgate  was  mod- 
elled. The  full  significance  of  this  fact  will  be  best 
understood  by  those  who  are  aware  of  the  many  mis- 
takes which  transcribers  may  make,  and  that  the  last 
of  a  succession  of  copies  of  any  particular  document, 
especiall}'  when  no  longer  extant,  is  likely  to  be  the 
most  inaccurate  of  the  entire  series. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  the  Vulgate  has  therefore  been 
assigned  a  high  rank  among  existing  copies  of  the  Sa- 
cred Scripture,  not  only  by  Catholic  but  by  Protestant 
critics.  Indeed,  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  cite  a 
long  list  of  the  latter  who  have  recognized  the  emi- 
nent merits  of  the  Vulgate.  But  a  CathoHc  writer  is 
spared  this  trouble  by  Protestant  critics  who  have 
treated  the  subject.  Thus  Brian  Walton,  Anglican  bish- 
op of  Chester,  after  a  learned  dissertation  on  the  Vulgate, 
says: '  "  But  although  we  may  not  recognize  it  as  divine, 
we  admit  that  it  is  to  be  highly  esteemed  and  not  to  be 
easily  found  fault  with,  both  because  of  its  antiquity  and 
the  general  use  which  the  Western  Church  has  made  of 
it  for  a  thousand  years,  as  also  on  account  of  the  learning 
and  fidelity  of  Jerome,  whom  we  recognize  as  its  princi- 
pal author,  and  whom  the  most  learned  Protestants 
gratefully  extol  for  the  eminent  services  he  rendered 
to  the  Church."  Walton  then,  in  confirmation  of  this 
statement,  appeals  to  the  testimony  of  Theodore  Beza, 
the  successor  of  Calvin;  John  Boys,  Prebendary  of  Ely, 
who  assisted  in  writing  King  James's  translation,  and 
was  one  of  the  six  divines  appointed  to  revise  that  trans- 
lation when  completed;  Paul  Fagius,  appointed  by  Cran- 
mer  to  teach  Hebrew  in  Cambridge  ;  Louis  de  Dieu,  prin- 
cipal of  one  of  the  colleges  at  Leyden  and  professor  of 
the    University ;   and    Hugh   Grotius,  one  of   the    most 

*  Pro  leg.,  X. 


3^4  ^/^^'  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstaimnt 

learned  v,  Hters  belonging  to  the  sixteenth  century.  Dr. 
Wright  of  Trinity  College,  writing  long  after  Walton, 
has  thus  referred  to  the  Vulgate  :  "  The  most  learned 
and  judicious  Protestants  (Mill,  Proleg.  ;  Bengel,  Appara- 
tus ;  Lachman,  Pre/.)  justly  conspire  in  holding  it  in  a  high 
degree  of  veneration."  '  In  regard  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment of  the  Vulgate  he  cites  Dr.  Campbell,  a  learned 
Scotch  Presbyterian  divine,  who  died  in  1796,  and  re- 
marks that,  "  Dr.  Campbell  {on  the  Gospels)  considers  that, 
as  the  last  part  of  the  Vulgate  was  completed  fourteen 
hundred-years  ago,  and  from  manuscripts  older  probably 
than  any  now  extant,  and  at  a  time,  too,  when  the  mod- 
ern controversies  were  unknown,  the  Council  of  Trent 
acted  rightly  in  giving  the  preference  to  this  (the  Vulgate 
New  Testament),  which  he  designates  a  good  and  faith- 
ful version,  remarkable  for  purity  and  perspicuity."  " 
To  this  array  of  testimony  may  be  added  the  name  of 
one  who  died  in  1862,  Thomas  Hart  well  Home,  whose 
authority  on  all  Biblical  questions  is  almost  supreme 
among  Protestants.  This  writer  cites  the  authority  of 
Richard  Simon,  the  learned  Oratorian,  to  show  "  that 
the  more  ancient  the  Greek  manuscripts  and  other  ver- 
sions arc,  the  more  closelv  do  they  agree  with  the  Vul- 
gate, which  has,  in  consequence,  been  more  justly  appre- 
ciated." ^  And  Mr.  Home  himself  adds :  "  The  Latin 
Vulgate  preserves  many  true  readings,  where  the  mod- 
ern Hebrew  copies  are  corrupt."  Besides,  it  is  in  evi- 
dence that  King  James's  translators  sometimes  followed 
"  the  Vulgate  in  opposition  to  both  "  '  Stephen's  and 
Beza's  editions,  and  that  wherever  they  seem  to  have  fol- 
lowed a  reading  which  is  not   found    in    the    principal 

'   Kitto's  Cycl.,  Vulgate. 

^  Inirod.  to  the  Critical  Study  of  the  Scriptures,  vol.  II.,  p.  239. 

3  Histoire  Critique,  etc. 

•*  Scrivener's  Supplement  to  Authorized  Version,  Kitto's  Cycl.,  II.,  p.  927. 


The  Dona  J  Bible,  -Sc 

editions  of  the  Greek  text,  "  their  rendering  may  prob- 
ably be  traced  to  the  Latin  Vulgate."  ' 

It  must,  therefore,  be  admitted  that,  when  Dr.  Greg- 
pry  Martin  and  his  associates  undertook  to  provide  their 
countrymen  with  a  version,  they  could  hardly  have  had 
a  better  copy  of  the  Bible  than  the  one  which  they  pro- 
posed to  translate.     It  may  also  be  admitted,  that  they 
were  all  adm'irably  equipped  for  the  task  on  which  they 
entered.     For,  while  the  others  were  by  their  education 
well    qualified  to  assist  him,   Martin  himself,  who'  per- 
formed the  principal  part  of  the  work,  was  distinguished 
by  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  and  Greek  (a  fact  publicly 
recognized  sometime  before  at  the  university  of  Oxford), - 
and,  while  connected  with  the  English  College  at  Douay 
and  at  Rheims,  was  professor  of  Hebrew  and  Scripture 
in  that  institution.     But  this  point  need  not  be  insisted 
on,   as  it  is  generally  admitted   by  eminent    Protestant 
writers,  all  of  whom  appear  to  re-echo  the  sentiment  ex- 
pressed by  one  of  their  own  number,  who  says  that  "  the 
Remish  divines  (who  were  evidently  men  of   learning 
and    ability)   may  occasionally  do   us  good  service,  by 
furnishing  some    happy  phrase   or    form   of  expression, 
which  had  eluded  the  diligence  of  their  more  reputable 
predecessors."  '     Can  it  be  that  the  critic's  last  words 
refer  to    Tyndale  and   Coverdale,  who  translated  from 
"the  Douche  and  Latyn."     If  so,  his  admission  is  the 
more  valuable.     A  less  cynical  critic  declares,  '  that  the 
English  version  of  the  Vulgate  "  is  highly  commendable 
for  its  scrupulous  accuracy  and  fidelity,   which  cannot 
be  predicated   of  all   translations    from  the  Vulgate   in 
other   languages."     And    certainly    not   of    "the    Holy 
Bible  containing  the   Old  and   New  Testaments  trans- 

1  Preface  to  Revision  of  A  nth.   Version  of  N.  Test. 

^  Dixon,  Introd.,  etc.,  Dissert,  ix. 

=•  Scrivener,  Supplement  to  Auth.   Version,  Kiito's  Cycl.,  II.,  p.  926. 

"  Rev.  W.  Wright,  LI..D.,  Trinity  College,  (Kitto's  CycL,  II.,  p.  926). 


386  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstauioit. 

lated  out  of  all  the  original  tongues  by  His  Majesty's 
special  command." 

The  translators  to  whose  learning  and  industry  Eng- 
lish literature   is  indebted    for  the  Douay  Bible,  while 
prosecuting   their   laborious   task,  diligently    consulted 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  originals,  deviating  from  each 
only  so  far  as  a  due  respect  for  the  text  of  the  Vulgate 
rendered  necessary.      The  consequence  has  been  that, 
though,  to  quote  Mr.  Scrivener  again, '  "  in  justice  it  must 
be  observed,  that  no  case  of  wilful  perversion  of  Script- 
ure has  ever  been  brought  home  to  the  Rhemish  trans- 
laters,"    yet    another     Protestant    writer,    Dr.    Samuel 
Davidson,  had,  it  must  be  confessed,  good  reason  to  re- 
mark   that    in  the    "  Anglo-Rhemish  version    many  of 
the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek  words  are  retained,  so 
that  simplicity   and    perspicuity   are  sacrificed."     Had 
the  Doctor  added  that  the  phraseology  of  that  version, 
on  account  of  the  Latinisms  which  appeared  in  it,  was, 
like  the  Authorized  Version,  in  many  places  obscure  to 
ordinary  readers,  he  would  have  been  by  no  means  h}-- 
percritical.      But  when  he  further  stated  that  "  it  has 
been  conjectured  that  this  (the  retention  of  Hebrew  and 
Greek  words)  was  done  to  render  it  (the  version)  as  ob- 
scure as  possible  to  the  people,"  he  should  have  candidly 
informed  all  who  so  conjectured,  that  they   were   mis- 
taken ;  that  all  obscurities  were  afterwards  removed  from 
the  version;  that  their  own  version  is  not  free  from  ob- 
scurities ;  that    in    St.    Paul's    "  Epistles.  .  .  .  are  certain 
things  hard  to  be  understood,"  not  only  by  the  people 
but  by  the  learned — a  fault  from  which,  if  it  be  such,  it 
has  not  pleased  God  to  preserve  even  "  the  other  Script- 
ures," ^  and  that,  if  intentional  obscurity  in  this  case  were 
even  a  demonstrated  fact,  instead  of  being  as  it  is  a  patent 
impudent  fiction,  it   would  not   be  so  grave  an   offence 
against  the  sacred  majesty  of  God's  word  as  the  gross, 

'    Suppl.  to  Aiith.  Vers.  ■  II.  Pet.  iii.  16. 


riic  Doiiay  Bible.  387 

deliberate  perversions  of  that  word  which  occur  in  al- 
most every  chapter  of  King  James's  New  Testament 
particularly. 

The  appearance  of  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Anglicized 
Latin  words  in  the  Douay  Bible  is,  however,  easily  ac- 
counted for  by  the  following  circumstances,  so  that  it  is 
preposterous  to  suspect  that  the  translators  had  any 
intention  of  withholding  the  Scriptures  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  people.  That  they  wrote  any  sort  of  ver- 
sion whatever  proves  indeed  that  they  had  no  such  in- 
tention. But  their  censor  seems  to  have  forgotten  that 
they  had  been  driven  into  exile  by  a  Protestant  govern- 
ment, which  denied  to  Catholics  even  the  poor  boon  of 
toleration;  that  they  had  to  struggle  with  poverty  '  while 
at  Douay  or  Rheims,  where  they  were  principally  en- 
gaged in  preparing  priests,  rather  martyrs,  for  the  Eng- 
lish mission ;  that  long  and  continuous  absence  from 
England,  during  which  Latin  or  French  was  the  principal 
medium  of  communication  with  those  around  them,  must 
have  rendered  it  difficult  for  them  to  express  themselves 
correctly  in  their  mother-tongue  as  spoken  at  the  time ; 
and  that  in  their  preface  they  distinctly  notify  their  read- 
ers that  they  religiously  retain  the  phrases  word  for 
word,  "  for  fear  of  missing  or  restraining  the  sense  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  the  fantasie."  As  a  proof  of  this  they  refer 
to  such  phrases  as  //  emoi  kai  soi,  gunai{]o\\n  ii.  4),  which 
they  render,  "  what  to  Me  and  thee,  woman  ?  explaining 
it,  however,  in  a  note  thus:  "  what  hast  thou  to  do  with 
Me?"  The  text  of  the  Douay  Version  in  this  instance 
was  a  strictly  literal  translation  of  the  original,  which 
Bishop  Kenrick  rendered  :  "  Woman,  what  hast  thou  to 
do  with  Me  ?  "  and  the  Authorized  Version,  as  well  as  its 
revisers,  "  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ?  "  The 
Ancrlo-Catholic  translators  had,  as  their  work  as  well  as 

'  In  their  preface  they  pathetically  assign  "  lack  of  means  "  as  the  reason  why 
Iwenty-eighl  years  were  occupied  in  preparing  the  translation. 


388  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

their  words  show,  their  fears  and  their  scruples.  But  the 
entire  version  of  the  Anglo-Protestant  translators  too  well 
attests  that  they  were  troubled  with  no  feeling  of  the  kind. 
It  was  once  not  unusual  to  find  Protestant  critics  urg- 
ing serious  charges  of  incompetency  or  dishonesty 
aofainst  the  writers  of  the  x\no:lo-Catholic  translation  oi 
the  Vulgate.  One  of  these  critics  was  Hart  well  Home. 
But  the  grave  charges  which  he  brought  against  them 
in  the  seventh  edition  of  his  Introduetion,  having  been 
proved  false,  were  omitted  in  the  eighth  of  the  same 
work.  '  At  present  no  respectable  Protestant  scholar 
would  risk  his  reputation  by  saying  anything  more  un- 
favorable of  the  Dona}'  Bible  than  that  its  language  is  un- 
English — a  charge  which  an}-  Catholic  may  admit,  and 
one,  by  the  way,  to  which,  as  ever}-  impartial  Protestant 
will  allow,  the  Authorized  Version  itself  is  also  manifestly 
open.  Well  indeed  would  it  be  for  the  latter,  if  no  more 
serious  fault  could  be  proved  against  it.  Yet  the  Hebra- 
isms, Grascisms,  and  Latinisms  which  imparted  a  foreign 
aspect  to  the  English  of  the  Douay  Bible,  besides  being 
a  result  of  the  overscrupulous  fidelity  with  which  Dr. 
Martin  and  his  colleagues  endeavored  to  preserve  the 
exact  sense  of  the  original,  have  been  much,  indeed  very 
much,  exaggerated.  Here  are  a  few  specimens  which 
have  been  collected  together  by  a  modern  Protestant  crit- 
ic. "  Sindon  (Mark  xv.  46),  zelators  (Acts  xx.  20),  priE- 
linition  (Eph.  iii.  2),  contristate  (iv.  30),  agnition  (Philem. 
16.),  repropitiate  (Heb.  ii.  17),  With  such  hosts  God  is 
promerited  (xiii.    16)."  ^     Now,  all  these  words,  except 

1  Kitto's  Cyct.,  II.,  p.  926.  noie. 

2  For  the  accuracy  of  these  references  by  Dr  Wright,  he  alone  is  responsible; 
some,  if  not  all  of  them,  are  inaccurate.  The  Douay  translators,  generally  ex- 
plain all  such  words  in  their  notes,  or  at  the  end  of  the  New  Testament,  in  a 
list  of  "Hard  wordes  explicated;'''  several  of  the  words  selected  above  for 
condemnation  by  a  Protestant  critic  are  found  in  that  list,  the  others  are  prob 
ably  explicated  in  the  notes.  Such  trifles,  however,  are  beneath  the  notice  of 
a  Protestant  critic  writing  as  a  controversialist. 


TJic  Donay  Bible.  389 

two,  zclators  and  rcpropitiatc,  were  used  by  respectable 
English  writers  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
as  any  one  may  learn  by  consulting  Worcester's  Dic- 
tionary, and  it  is  quite  likely  that  a  thoi'ough  examina- 
tion of  contemporary  literature  would  show  that  the 
two  words  not  catalogued  by  Worcester  were  also  then 
in  use.  According  to  him  zcalant  occurs  in  the  writings 
of  Bacon. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  Anglo-Catholic  translators  of 
the  Vulgate,  anxious  to  transfer  to  their  Bible  the  full 
sense  of  that  version,  retained  in  many  instances,  prob- 
ably wherever  it  was  possible,  the  Vulgate's  ver}-  words 
in  an  anglicized  form,  difficult,  no  doubt,  to  the  common 
reader,  but  generally  understood  and  employed  by  the 
best  English  writers  of  the  time.  England  had  already 
been  flooded  with  spurious  versions  of  the  Vulgate 
written  by  Tyndale  and  Coverdale,  with  the  assistance 
of  Martin  Luther's  Douche,  in  a  dialect  with  which  the 
lower  classes  were  long  familiar.  And  it  may  have 
seemed  to  the  exiled  Catholic  translators,  that  the  best 
way  to  counteract  the  evil  was  to  bring  the  Vulgate  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  capacity  of  educated  readers,  not 
only  by  rendering  it  literall}-,  but  by  retaining  its  verv 
words,  so  far  as  the  actual  stage  which  the  English  lang- 
uage had  reached  would  permit.  The  leaders,  thus  en- 
abled to  perceive  the  true  character  of  the  Bibles  imposed 
on  the  country,  would,  it  may  have  been  hoped,  be  in  a 
position  to  convince  the  common  people,  who  looked  to 
them  for  guidance,  that  the  Bibles  with  which  the}-  had 
been  supplied  so  plentifully  were  only  base  counterfeits 
of  the  word  of  God.  But  whether  such  reasoning  had  or 
had  not  anything  to  do  with  determining  the  character 
of  the  Douay  version,  it  is  well  known  that  at  the  time 
a  great  number  of  Latin  words  were  struggling  for 
adoption  into  the  English  language,  and  that  several 
succeeded,  i-etaining  to   this  day  the  position    then  as- 


390  Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

signed  them.     But  not  a  few,  like  the  specimens  given 
above,  after  a  brief  trial,  have  been  discarded  by  writers 
and  speakers.     Unfortunately  for  the  popularity  of  the 
Douav  version,  it  contained  manv  such  words,  current 
enough  in  England  when  it  was  written,  but  since  con- 
signed to  oblivion,  though  still  well  understood  by  edu- 
cated readers,  the  class  to  which,  it  would  seem,  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  translators  particularly  addressed  themselves. 
The  Douay  Bible,  therefore,  must  have  been  read,  if 
read   at  all,  principally   by  persons  qualified  by   their 
education  to  test  its  fidelity.     On  the  other  hand,  the 
idiom  of  King  James's  Bible  being  a  widespread  provin- 
cial dialect,  originating  long  before  probably  in  North- 
amptonshire,' that  Bible  had  as  its  readers  generallv  only 
such  as  were  unable  to  decide  on  its  merits  or  defects 
by  comparing  it  with  "  the  original  tongues,"  from  which 
it  professes  in  its  title  page  to  have  been  "  translated." 
Its  circulation  was  not,  of  course,  confined  to  that  class. 
For  it  as  well  as  the  versions  prepared  by  T3^ndale  and 
Coverdale,  with  the  various  other  Bibles  descended  from 
those   versions  and  published  in  England  before   1611, 
were  patronized  by  many  to  whom,  on  account  of  their 
previous  studies,  their  real  character  could  have  been  no 
secret.     But  it  was  not  to  be  expected,  even  if  they  took 
the  trouble  to  ascertain  that  character,  that  men  who 
owed  all  that  they  were  and  all  that  they  owned  to  a  re- 
ligious revolution,  started,  pushed  forward,  and  consum- 
mated to  a  great  extent  by  the  Protestant  Bible,  would 
condemn,  whatever  its  faults,  the  agent  to  which  they 
were  principall}^  indebted  for  their  worldly  prosperity. 
Indeed,  it  would  have  required  a  superhuman  effort  for 
competent  critics,  whose  all  depended  on  the  maintenance 
of  the  svstem  in  favor  of  which  that  book  was  conceived, 
written,  and  put  in  circulation,to  have  declared  what  they 
honestlv  thought  of  the  volume.    Whoever  might  tell  the 

'    Marsh's  Lectures  oil  the  English  Language,  First  Series,  p.  622. 


The  Donay  Bible.  3yi 

truth  about  it,  it  was  their  interest  to  defend  it,  and  they 
did  so  in  most  instances  without  blush  or  hesitation. 

Even  at  this  day  the  revisers  of  the  authorized   ver- 
sion, while  confessing  and  correcting  a  few  of  its  many 
faults,  are  not  ashamed  to  say  in  reference  to  what  thev 
call  "  this  noble  translation,"  "  The  longer  we  have  been 
engaged  upon  it,  the  more  we  have  learned  to  admire  its 
simplicity,  its  dignity,  its  power,  its  happy  turns  of  ex- 
pression, its  general  accuracy,  and  we  must  not  fail  to 
add,  the  music  of  its  cadences  and  the  felicities  of  its 
rhythm."  '     Such  is  the  extravagant  and  fulsome  lan- 
guage itddressed  to  the  readers  of  the  authorized  ver- 
sion, who  generally  know  no  better,  by  those  who  find 
in  that  version  the  surest  support  of  those  opinions  on 
whose  perpetuation    their   all   in    this    world   depends. 
And  this  language  has  been  repeated  so  often,  so  confi- 
dently, and  with  such  a  semblance  of  weighty  authority, 
that  Protestants  ver}-  generally  believe  it,  and  few  Prot- 
estant writers  have  the  courage  to  criticise,  much  less 
to  contradict  it.     But   here  and  there  may  be  found  one 
with  sufificient  independence  to  utter  a  word  of  feeble 
dissent.     Mr,   Hallam,  for  example,  without,  however, 
daring  to  decide  whether  the  authorized  version  is  "  con- 
formable to  the  original  text,"   hazards  a  few  remarks 
regarding  its  "  style,"  which,  he  says,  "  is  in  general  so 
enthusiastically  praised,  that  no  one  is  permitted  either 
to  qualif\%  or  even  explain  the  grounds  of  his  approba- 
tion. .  .  .  but  ....  it  is  not  the  language  of  the  reign  of 
James  I.     It  may  in  the  eyes  of  many  be  a  better  English, 
but  it  is  not  the  English  of  Daniel, or  Raleigh,  or  Bacon, 
as  any  one  may  easily  perceive.     It  abounds,  in  fact,  es- 
pecially in  the  Old  Testament,  wuth  obsolete  phraseolo- 
gy,  and  with    single  words    long   since  abandoned  or 
retained  only  in  provincial  use."  ^     Need  we  wonder  that 

'  Preface  to  New  Revision,  p.  9. 

*  Literature  of  Europe,  Part  II.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  445. 


392  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

this  "style"  was  not  selected  by  the  Anglo-Catholic 
translators  of  the  Vulgate  ?  Or  is  anj-  one  aware  that 
it  was  ever  adopted  or  imitated  by  any  writer  or  speaker 
except  an  irreverent  newspaper  jester,  or  Joe  Smith, 
who  had  the  phraseology  of  his  book  of  Mormon  fash- 
ioned after  the  same  vulgar  dialect  which  served  as  a 
matrix  for  the  style  of  the  authorized  version  ? 

Uncouth,  unfaithful,  barbarous,  and  extremely  anti- 
quated as  King  James's  translation  is  in  far  too  many, 
passages,  no  reader,  unless  one  whose  imagination  has 
been  subjected  to  a  due  course  of  ministerial  discipline, 
could  discover  in  it  what  its  well-paid  and  enthusiastic 
admirers  are  pleased  to  call  "  its  dignity,  its  general  ac- 
curacy, the  music  of  its  cadences,  and  the  felicities  of  its 
rhythm."  The  truth  is,  that  with  an  impartial  English 
audience,  and  a  merely  tolerant  English  government, 
the  Douay  Bible,  at  least  as  revised  soon  after  its  ap- 
pearance, when  its  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin  words 
were  replaced  by  current  English,  would  have  long 
since  supplanted  its  pampered  and  dishonest  rival, 
wherever  the  English  language  was  spoken.  This  re- 
sult would  have  been  brought  about  by  the  ordinary  oper- 
ation of  the  general  law,  which,  unless  in  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances, always  secures  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

The  Douay  Bible  has  been  so  modernized  by  frequent 
recensions,  that  existing  copies  of  it  look  more  like  a  new 
translation  of  the  Vulgate  than  a  revision  of  an  old  ver- 
sion. Expurgated  its  text  never  has  been,  so  far  as  the 
sense  is  concerned,  because,  strictly  speaking,  there  was 
nothing  therein  to  expurgate.  But  what  a  herculean 
task  awaits  the  enterprising  scholar  who  will  undertake 
to  modernize  the  English  Protestant  Bible,  and  expur- 
gate its  text  from  all  the  corruptions  which,  notwith- 
standing the  work  of  its  latest  revisers,  still  render  that 
version  quite  objectionable.  Besides,  who  would  have 
the  courage  to  engage  in  such  a  task,  with  the  cheerless 


TIic  Doitay  Bible.  393 

prospect  before  him.  that  those  whose  knowledge  of 
God's  word  he  woidd  thus  propose  to  promote,  have 
such  an  inveterate  and  irrational  attachment  to  their 
hereditary  Bible,  that  they  would  fail  to  adopt  his  cor- 
rections or  even  thank  him  for  his  labors. 

The  principal,  in  fact,  the  only  valid  objection  that 
could  be  made  against  the  text  of  the  Douay  Bible  as  it 
left  the  hands  of  its  authors,  was  the  retention  of  so 
many  words  exactly  or  almost  as  they  were  written  in 
the  original.  Yet,  for  this  the  Douay  divines  mav  have 
had  good  reason.  At  least  it  is  possible  to  conjecture 
such  reason,  without  charging  them  with  a  deliberate 
purpose  of  rendering  their  version  as  obscure  as  possi- 
ble, a  charge  as  absurd  as  it  is  malicious.  For,  if  that 
had  been  their  purpose,  would  it  not  have  been  bet- 
ter promoted  by  leaving  the  Church's  authentic  copy 
of  the  Scriptures,  as  the  Church  herself  had  left  it,  in 
Latin.  That  would  have  rendered  the  Scriptures  much 
more  obscure  to  the  people  than  the  course  which  the 
Douay  divines  took.  To  them  the  meaning  of  many  of 
the  words  in  the  original  may  have  seemed  obscure. 
Indeed,  not  a  few  of  them  still  baffle  the  skill  of  the  best 
commentators.  And  when  they  met  with  them,  what 
were  the  Anglo-Catholic  translators  to  do?  Substitute 
definite  English  words  for  all  such,  and  thus  commit 
themselves,  as  King  James's  translators  did,  to  a  render- 
ing which  further  investigation  might  show  to  be  incor- 
rect? No,  as  conscientious  translators  they  could  take 
no  such  liberty  with  the  text  before  them,  and  so  they 
decided  sometimes  to  transfer  to  their  version  a  word 
just,  or  almost,  as  they  found  it  in  the  original,  rather 
than  impose  on  their  readers  a  rendering  of  whose 
accuracy  they  were  not  assured  themselves.  Our 
separated  brethren  have  had  good  reason  to  wish,  that 
the  translators  of  their  Bible  had  been  equally  scrupu- 
lous.     Had  the  latter  translators  emulated  the  fidelity 


394  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

with  which  the  sense  of  the  Vulgate  was  transferred  to 
the  Douay  Bible,  a  Canterbury  revision,  because  un- 
necessary, would  probably  have  never  been  heard  of. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  rule  thus  imposed  on  the 
authors  of  the  Douay  version  by  their  profound  respect 
for  the  sense  of  the  original,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
the  first  among  the  specimens  of  what  are  called,  by  a 
Protestant  critic,  "  the  barbarous  words  and  phrases  " 
employed  in  that  version,  and  indicated  in  a  preceding 
page  ;  namely,  the  word  Sindon.  This  word  has  been 
applied  in  the  original  Greek,  as  well  as  in  the  Vulgate, 
by  the  hrst  three  Gospels  to  the  shroud  or  winding 
sheet  provided  for  Our  Lord's  body,  after  being  taken 
down  from  the  cross.  Whatever  was  the  material  out  of 
which  the  Sindon  there  mentioned  was  made,  the  tex- 
tile fabric  used  on  the  same  occasion  is  called  in  the 
fourth  Gospel  by  its  Greek  name  othonion,  rendered  no 
doubt  correctly  by  the  Vulgate  linteis  (linen  cloths),  by 
the  Rhemish  New  Testament  linnen  elotJies.  Although 
the  reference  in  the  first  three  Gospels  is  to  the  winding 
sheet,  while  in  the  last  it  is  probably  to  the  strips  or 
bandages  in  which  the  body  and  limbs  were  swathed  to 
keep  "  the  mixture  of  myrrh  and  aloes"  in  place,  the 
writers  (3f  the  Douay  version  had  good  reason  to  doubt 
whether  Sindon  meant  the  same  material  as  othonion  (lin- 
en). If  it  did,  why  did  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke 
employ  it  instead  of  othonion'^  Was  it  not  better  to  re- 
tain Sindon,  just  as  it  stood  in  the  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
leave  the  readers  of  the  Douay  Bible  to  interpret  it  as 
they  pleased,  especially  as  the  word  was  then  current 
among  respectable  English  writers?  So  Dr.  Martin 
and  his  colleagues  appear  to  have  thought.  So  at  least 
they  did.  That  they  were  mistaken,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  prove,  although  a  different  course  has 
been  taken  by  all  other  English  translators,  Catholic 
as   well    as    Protestant,    whose    renderings  of   the    two 


The  Donay  Bible.  395 

words,  in  the  passages  referred  to,  substantially  agree 
with  each  other,  as  appears  from  the  following  ex- 
hibit, where,  for  the  convenience  of  the  mere  English 
reader,  Sindon  is  written  in  the  nominative  case,  though 
it  may  be  found  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  text  in  some 
other  case. 


Matt,  xxvii.  59. 

Mark  xv.  46. 

LUKE  XXIII.  53. 

!  John  xix.  40. 

Greek. 

Sindon. 

Sindon ,  twice. 

Sindon. 

Othoniois. 

Latin. 

Sindou. 

Sindon,  ttvice. 

Sindon. 

linteis. 

Kenrick. 

linen  cloth. 

fine  linen,  twice. 

linen  cloth. 

linen  cloths. 

Corerdole. 

lynnen  cloth. 

\  lynuen  cloth,  j. 
1  twice.              C 

lynnen  cloth. 

lynnen  clothes. 

Author.  Vers. 

linen  cloth. 

flne  linen,  linen 

linen. 

linen  cloths. 

Rev.  of  Ant.     i 
Vers.                1 

linen  cloth. 

( linen  cloth,     ' 
1  twice.             ( 

linen  cloth. 

linen  cloths. 

Why  Kenrick,  in  rendering  Mark,  inserts  the  word  pie 
does  not  appear,  '  although  his  translation  of  the  Vul- 
gate, rather  his  revision  of  the  Douay  version,  is  fur- 
nished with  copious  and  learned  notes.  All  of  them,  in 
rendering  Matthew,  have  before  /inen  cloth  the  word 
clean,  for  it  is  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  ;  St.  Mark,  as  just 
indicated,  has  in  the  Greek  Sindoti  twice  in  the  same 
verse,  once  Sindona  in  the  accusative  case,  once  Sindoni 
in  the  dative.  And  the  authorized  version  renders  the 
first  Sindona  "  l^ne  linen  ;  "  but,  as  if  to  keep  up  its  well 
earned  reputation  for  gross  inconsistency,  it  renders  the 
second  Sindoni  simply  "  linen." 

The  substantial  agreement  thus  existing  among  trans- 
lators in  interpreting  Sindon  by  the  word  ''linen;'  seems 
to  prove  that  the  writers  to  whom  the  Douay  version 
owes  its  origin  were  mistaken  in  leaving  Sindon  as 
they  found  it,  instead  of  rendering  it  "  linen."  That, 
however,  is  not  so  clear  ;  for,  while  the  rendering  of 
the  former  leaves  the  mere  English  reader  under  the 
impression  that   all    four   evangelists   apply    the    same 

.  Unless  he  was  anxious,  for  some  reason  known  to  himself,  to  follow  in  this 
instance  the  authorized  version. 


396  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

term  to  the  cloths  used  in  the  burial  of  Our  Lord's 
body,  the  rendering  of  the  latter,  by  showing  that  the 
expression  of  St.  John  was  different  from  that  of  the 
other  three  evangelists,  guards  the  reader  against  the 
false  inference  that  the  description  given  by  the  four 
evangelists  is  one  and  the  same.  It  is  true,  there  was 
some  reason  for  beheving  that  the  cloths  provided  by 
Joseph  of  Arimathea  for  Our  Lord's  burial  were  all  lin- 
en, as  those  used  for  similar  purposes  in  Egypt  were  of 
that  material,  a  fact  placed  be3ond  all  doubt  when 
mummy  cloths  were  examined  with  the  aid  of  the  mi- 
croscope. It  would  therefore  seem  to  follow  that  those 
translators  who  represented  b}"  the  English  word  linen 
the  Sindon  of  the  evangelists  were  right,  and  that  the 
Douay  divines  were  wrong  in  retaining  Sindon  in  their 
translation  ;  3^et  an  apologist  of  the  Douay  divines  might 
be  permitted  to  remark  that,  though  the  microscope 
has  shown  that  the  material  of  the  mummy  cloths  was 
linen,  it  appears  that  this  was  not  universallv  the  case, 
as  it  has  been  ascertained,  in  one  instance  at  least,  that 
"  the  mummy  cloth  of  a  child  was  formed  of  cotton, 
not  of  linen,  as  is  the  case  wnth  adult  mummies."  '  Were 
there  question,  therefore,  about  an  Egyptian  instead  of  a 
Jewish  sepulture,  Sindon  might,  but  would  not  necessari- 
ly have  to,  be  rendei"ed  "  linen."  Besides,  while  embalm- 
ing appears  to  have  been  universally  practised  in  Egvpt 
from  the  earliest  times,  and  only  ceased  there  about  the 
sixth  or  seventh  century  of  our  era,  there  is  no  evidence 
to  show  that  the  custom  was  ever  observed  in  Palestine 
to  any  extent.  The  "jam  foetet"  of  the  Gospel  proves 
that  the  body  of  Lazarus,  who  appears  to  have  been  re- 
spectably connected,  was  not  embalmed.  And  even 
when  some  operation  designated  embalming  was  per- 
formed among  the  Jews,  it  was  altogether  different  from 
what  was  known  by  the  same  name  among  the  Egyp- 

'  Kitto's  Cycl..  vol.  I.,  p.  474.  Many  mummies  have  been  found  wrapt  in 
woolen  cloth;  that  of  Myceiinus,  an  Egyptian  Sovereign,  was  found  encased  in 
siirb  i-;in'('vi'l.    J    Kc>nrir]-"s   4 inirnt  F.QV^f  'mder  th:'  P/nrao/is.  pp.  Ill,    liS. 


The  Douay  Bible.  397 

tians.  The  former,  when  tU^ne,  simply  retarded,  the  lat- 
ter absolutely  prevented,  the  process  of  decomposition. 
Besides,  if  the  Palestinian  method  of  embalming  had 
been  identical  with  the  Egyptian,  why  should  it  be 
concluded  that  the  textile  fabric  used  on  the  occasion 
by  the  Jews  was  the  same  in  all  respects  as  that  in 
which  Egyptian  mummies  are  now  found  encased. 
Furthermore,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Egyptians,  in 
preparing  their  dead  for  burial,  made  use  of  such  a 
cloth  as  the  Sindoji  of  the  first  three  Gospels,  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  sheet  in  which  Our  Lord's  body 
was  wrapped  when  taken  down  from  the  cross,  and  in 
which  it  was  laid  while  being  swathed  with  the  othouiois, 
linen  bandages,  before  being  consigned  to  the  sepulchre. 
If  these  bandages  were  of  linen,  like  the  cerement  of  an 
Egyptian  mummv,  the  Sindon  of  the  Evangelists  need 
not  have  been  of  the  same  material.  Finally,  and  this 
should  have  some  weight  in  deciding  the  question,  a 
writer  whose  opinion  is  entitled  to  great  respect, 
and  who  has  devoted  much  attention  to  the  names  by 
which  the  various  cloths  were  known  to  the  ancients, 
states  that  '^  Sindon  was  t\\e  geno'al  term  for  every  fine 
stuff;  so  that  it  was  even  applied  to  woolen  fabrics.  .  .  . 
Sindon  was  therefore  any  stuff  of  a  very  fine  texture, 
and  might  be  applied  to  modern  Cashmere  and  Jerbee 
shawls,  as  well  as  to  muslin  and  cambric."  ' 

It  is  therefore  at  least  far  from  certain,  that,  when  the 
Douay  divines  decided  on  copying  instead  of  translat- 
ing Si)idon,  they  were  mistaken.  But  whatever  be  the 
merits  or  faults  of  their  version,  it  was  not  honored  by 
the  imprimatur  of  a  single  bishop,  much  less  by  any 
formal  approbation  of  the  Holy  See.  It  could  boast  of 
no  higher  recommendation  than  that  of  a  few  theologians 
connected  with  the  College  and  Cathedral  of  Rheims  and 

1  Rawlinson's /i'>wa'c/«j,  II.,  p.  122,  note  6. 


398  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

the  University  of  Douay.'  The  Rheims  version  was 
first  published  in  a  quarto  volume,  and  the  Douay  in  two 
quarto  volumes. 

»  A  Catholic  Dictionary  (Douay  Bible). 


CHAPTER  XXVll. 


Editions  and  Revisions  of  the  Douay  Bible  in 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  with  other  Cath- 
olic VERSIONS  executed  FOR  BOTH  COUNTRIES. 

Of  this  version,  consisting  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment, and  commonly  called  the  Douay  Bible,  there  have 
been  several  editions  and  revisions.  And  since  it  ap- 
peared, there  have  been  two  independent  English  trans- 
lations ot  the  Vulgate  New  Testament  made  by  Cath- 
olic writers.  The  following  details  on  the  subject  have 
been  derived  from  various  sources. ' 

In  1600  a  second  edition  of  the  Rheims  New  Testa- 
ment appeared  in  quarto,  with  some  alterations  and  cor- 
rections. 

In  162 1  it  was  brought  to  a  third  edition  in  i6mo. 

In  1633  a  fourth  edition  in  quarto  was  issued. 

In  1635  there  was  pubHshed  a  second  edition  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  quarto,  without  alterations  or  correc- 
tions. 

In  1738  a  fifth  edition  of  the  New  Testament  in  folio 
was  put  forth,  the  spelling  being  modernized,  and  the 
text  as  well  as  the  notes  slightly  altered. 

In  1788  a  sixth  edition  of  the  New  Testament  (folio) 
was  published  in  Liverpool,  with  the  original  preface 
and  notes. 

1  Dixon,  Introd.  to  the  S.  .S'.-Kenrick,  General  Introd.  to  the  N.  Test.— 
Newman's  Essay  on  the  Kheims  and  Douay  Version  of  the  H.  S.-Bibliographi- 
cal  Account  of  Cath.  Bibles,  Testaments,  and  other  portions  of  Set  ipttire  trans- 
lated from  the  Latin  Vulgate  and  published  in  the  United  States.  By  John 
Gilmary  Shea,  \A..V). -Dublin  R,-v.,  vol.  I.,  article  ix. 


sua 


400  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament, 

In  i8i6  as  well  as  in  1818  an  attempt  was  made  to  cir- 
culate among  the  Irish  Catholics  copies  of  the  Douay 
version  ccjntaining  the  objectionable  notes  by  which  it 
was  at  first  accompanied.  But  on  both  occasions  the 
vigorous  opposition  o£  the  Irish  hierarchy  rendered  the 
attempt  abortive.  These  attempts  originated  in  a  plan 
conceived  in  181 3  by  one  McNamara,  a  book-seller  of 
Cork.  His  purpose  was,  as  a  source  of  personal  profit,  to 
reproduce  in  elegant  style  the  Douay  Bible,  as  it  left  the 
hands  of  the  translators.  Not  finding  in  Cork  the  neces- 
sary facilities  for  such  a  work,  and  being  himself  pos- 
sessed of  very  limited  resources,  he  induced  a  respecta- 
ble Protestant  by  the  name  of  Cummings,  engaged  in 
the  same  business  in  Dublin,  to  have  the  book  printed  in 
the  latter  cit}-.  The  approbation  of  Dr.  Troy,  Archbish- 
op of  Dublin,  was  asked  and  readily  granted,  that  prel- 
ate supposing  that  the  Bible  was  to  be  nothing  more 
than  a  handsome  reprint  of  one  published  under  his  sanc- 
tion by  R.  Cross  in  179 1  '  and  further  stipulating  that,  to 
guard  the  purity  of  the  text,  the  proof-sheets  should  be 
revised  by  Rev.  P.  A.  Walsh,  a  Catholic  clerg3man  of 
Dublin.  McNamara,  having  obtained  a  considerable 
number  of  subscribers  among  the  bishops,  priests,  and 
laity,  commenced  publishing  the  book  in  numbers.  But 
before  it  was  completed  he  became  bankrupt.  Cum- 
mings, his  assignee,  having  on  his  hands  many  unsold 
copies  of  the  numbers  already  published,  in  order  to  in- 
demnify himself,  decided  to  utilize  these  by  printing  the 
remainder,  and  thus  place  the  entire  work  in  the  market. 
This  he  accomplished,  and  the  Bible  was  published  in 
1 8 16.  In  the  mean  time  McNamara,  no  way  discouraged 
by  his  failure,  resolved  to  have  an  exact  copy  of  his  for- 
mer work  printed.  He  commenced  this  second  enterprise 
in  181 7,  publishing  the  edition  as  before  in  numbers,  on 
the  covers  of  which  he  copied  the  list  of  original  sub- 

'    Infrn,  p.  410. 


The  Doiiay  and  other  Anglo-Catholic  Wrsions.      401 

scribers,  to  which  he  added  the  names  of  others  which 
he  had  procured  subsequently  He  succeeded  in  pub- 
Hshing  his  Bible  in  181 8.  It,  as  well  as  the  one  already 
published  two  years  before,  contained  all  the  objection- 
able notes  belonging  to  the  original  Douay  Bible.  It  is 
difficult  to  say  whether  this  happened  through  an  over- 
sight on  the  part  of  Father  Walsh,  or  through  the  bad 
faith  of  the  publishers.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  in 
this  matter  the  instructions  of  Dr.  Troy  were  disre- 
garded. Many  of  the  notes  in  question,  having  been  in- 
spired in  a  great  measure  by  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  the 
writers  by  the  British  Government,  w^ere  still  very  dis- 
tasteful to  the  advocates  of  English  supremacy  in  Ireland, 
and  \vere  seized  upon,  as  soon  as  they  appeared  in  the 
editions  of  McNamara  and  Cummings,  as  an  argument 
against  Catholic  emancipation,'  a  question  which  at  the 
time  engrossed  public  attention.  To  add  to  the  difificul- 
ties  of  the  situation,  so  far  as  the  advocates  of  emancipa- 
tion were  concerned,  Cummings,  being  a  Protestant,  and 
fearing  lest  the  appearance  of  his  name  on  the  title-page 
of  the  Bible  he  proposed  publishing  would  prevent  its. 
circulation  among  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  substituted,, 
with  his  consent  however,  that  of  a  well-known  Dublin 
Catholic  publisher,  Richard  Coyne.  To  complicate  mat- 
ters still  further,  this  very  Bible  of  Cummings  was  also 
published  at  the  same  time  by  Keating  and  Brown  in 
London,  for  private  circulation,  as  was  said,  in  Ireland. 
A  very  unfavorable  criticism  on  the  Bible,  published 
over  the  name  of  Cojme,  appeared  in  a  British  periodical, 
and  Dr.  Troy's  attention  was  thus  directed  in  the  latter 
part  of  18 1 7  to  the  character  of  its  contents.  Indignant 
at  the  manner  in  w^hich  his  sanction  had  been  abused, 
he  immediately  issued  a  circular,  in  which  the  edition  of 
1816  was  condemned.     The  effect  of  this  condemnation 

'   As  if  Cummings,  a  Protestant,  wasconspinng  with  other  Catholic  printers 
against  the  stability  of  the  British  throne. 


402  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

was  fatal  to  the  circulation,  not  only  of  that  edition,  but 
of  that  brought  out  by  McNamara  in  1818.  The  latter 
publisher,  to  escape  the  force  of  the  condemnation,  tried 
to  secure  the  sale  of  his  Bible  by  changing  some  of  its 
leaves,  but  even  then  it  could  not  find  readers.  Cum- 
mings,  unable  to  find  purchasers,  was  compelled  to  export 
to  America  the  copies  then  remaining  on  his  hands,  some 
500.  The  speculation  was  a  most  unfortunate  one  for 
McNamara  and  Cummings,  and  was  probably  the  last  at- 
tempt that  was  made,  at  least  in  Europe,  to  preserve  from 
oblivion  the  acrimonious  annotations  with  which  the 
persecuted  divines  of  Rheims  had  accompanied  their 
English  version  of  the  Vulgate  New  Testament.  We 
shall  meet  with  McNamara's  Bible  further  on. ' 

Notwithstanding  the  many  editions  through  which 
the  Douay  Bible  had  passed,  and  the  occasional  efforts 
made  to  improve  it,  towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  it  was  generally  felt  among  Catholics  that  on 
account  of  its  antiquated  language,  its  obsolete  words, 
and  its  faulty  spelling,  an  independent  translation  of 
the  Vulgate  should  be  made,  and  the  sense  of  the 
Scriptures  thus  conveyed  as  correctly  as  possible  to  Eng- 
lish readers.  Convinced  of  this,  Cornelius  Nary,  an 
Irishman,  Doctor  of  Laws  of  the  University  of  Paris,  and 
parish  priest  of  St.  Michan's,  Dublin,  in  1709  published 
in  London  a  new  translation  of  the  Vulgate  New  Tes- 
tament. It  had  the  approbation  of  four  Irish  divines  of 
Paris  and  of  Dublin,  and  was  republished  in  171 7. 
Actuated  by  a  similar  motive,  Dr.  Witham,  an  English 
divine,  and  president  of  Douay  College,  wrote  another 
new  translation  of  the  Vulgate  New  Testament,  with 
learned  notes.  It  was  published  in  1730,  having  been 
approved  by  t)r.  Challoner  with  other  divines  attached 
to  the  Doua}'  College,  and  passed  through  a  second  edi- 
tion.    Neither  it,  however,  nor  Nary's,  its  predecessor, 

'  See  next  cliapter. 


Tlie  Douay  and  other  Anglo-Catholic  Wrsioiis.       403 

seems  to  have  been  received  with  favor.  Fur,  both  were 
superseded  by  the  revision  of  the  Rheims  New  Testament 
in  duodecimo,  which  Dr.  Challoner,  whose  memory  as 
vicar-aiX)Stolic  of  the  London  district  is  still  grateful- 
ly venerated  by  English  Catholics,  published  in  1749. 
The  illustrious  prelate  appears  to  have  engaged  in  this 
enterprise  from  the  same  considerations  in  which  the 
two  independent  translations  mentioned  above  originat- 
ed. But  their  failure  to  secure  popularity  convinced 
him  that  the  demand  of  the  Catholic  public  was  not  to 
be  satisfied  by  substituting  a  distinct  version  for  the  old 
one,  but  by  modernizing  the  language  and  style  of  the 
latter.  In  1750,  he  brought  out  an  edition  of  the  entire 
Bible,  including,  therefore,  a  second  edition  of  the  New 
Testament.  A  third  edition  of  the  latter  was  issued  by 
him  in  1752.  This  was  followed,  in  1763-64,  by  a  second 
edition  of  his  revision  of  the  entire  Bible,  which  brought 
the  New  Testament  to  a  fourth  edition.  In  1772,  he  had 
a  fifth  edition  of  the  latter  printed  ;  it  being  succeeded,  in 
1777,  by  a  sixth  edition,  the  last  which  he  lived  to  pre- 
pare, for  he  died  soon  after,  in  his  ninetieth  year,  hav- 
ing devoted  much  of  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life  to 
the  further  improvement  of  his  revision  of  the  Douay 
version. 

The  notes  which  Dr.  Challoner  inserted  in  his  ver- 
sion were  comparatively  few,  but  judicious  and  inoffen- 
sive. His  alterations,  however,  of  the  Douay  text, 
though  not  deviating  from  the  sense  of  the  Douay  ver- 
sion, were  considerable,  his  principal  object  being  to 
render  that  version  intelligible  to  ordinary  readers.  In 
that  he  succeeded  ;  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
phraseological  and  verbal  changes  introduced  by  him 
compensated  for  the  loss  thus  sustained  by  the  original 
in  energy  and  impressiveness.  Kenrick  says,  he  is 
thought  to  have  weakened  the  style  by  his  inversion  of 
words,    an   opinion   shared   by    Cardinal   Newman.     In 


404  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

fact,  his  revision  might  be  regarded  as  a  translation  of 
the  Vulgate,  rather  than  a  recension  of  the  Doua}-  Bible. 
Yet  it  was  favorably  received,  and  has  ever  since  been 
the  standard  of  the  many  editions  of  the  Douay  Old 
Testament  and  the  Rheims  New  Testament  published 
in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  the  United  States. 
So  that  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  Douay  Bible  any 
longer  exists  among  English  speaking  Catholics  as  the 
received  version  of  the  Vulgate. 

Dr.  Henr}^  Colton,  Anglican  archdeacon  of  Cashed 
1855,  was  the  first  to  remark  that  alterations  made  by 
Dr.  Challoner  in  the  Doua}-  Bible  were  in  the  direction 
of  the  Protestant  version.  And  it  has  been  said  by 
other  Protestant  writers  that,  according  to  Cardinal 
Newman,  Dr.  Challoner's  revision  approximated  to  that 
version.  This  is  hardly  a  fair  statement  of  the  opinion 
expressed  by  his  Eminence.  It  would  be  more  correct 
to  say  that  he  has  in  a  certain  measure  tested  the  accu- 
racy of  the  statement  put  forth  b}-  the  archdeacon,  and  has 
thus  been  led  to  observe  that,  besides  inverting  the  order 
in  which  the  words  occur  in  the  Douay  version,  and  occa- 
sionally substituting  modern  words  for  those  of  that  ver- 
sion, several  examples  of  all  which  the  Cardinal  gives,, 
"  There  seems  no  desire  to  substitute  Saxon  words  for 
Latin,  for  '  set  forth  '  is  altered  into  '  declare  ' ;  nor,  per- 
haps, to  approach  the  Protestant  version,  though  there 
often  is  an  approach  in  fact,  from  the  editor's  desire  to 
improve  the  English  of  his  own  text."  The  Cardinal 
again  observes  that,  allowing  for  the  connection  between 
the  Douay  and  the  Challoner,  "  Challoner's  version  is 
even  nearer  to  the  Protestant  than  it  is  to  the  Douay ; 
nearer,  that  is,  not  in  grammatical  structure,  but  in 
phraseolog}?^  and  diction."  This,  in  reference  to  the 
Douay  Old  Testament.  With  regard  to  the  Rheims 
New  Testament,  the  same  illustrious  writer  says,  that 
Challoner  "  could  not  be  unfaithful  to  the  Vulgate;  he 


The  Donay  ami  other  Anglo-Catliolie  Versions.       405 

never  would  leave  its  literal  sense  for  the  Protestant 
text,  which,  on  the  other  hand,  is  translated  from 
the  Greek  ; "  that  in  several  instances,  which  are  ad- 
duced, he  keeps  to  the  Rheims,  though  "  in  one  case, 
where  the  Rheims  is  with  the  Greek,  he  leaves  it  for 
the  Protestant,  which  is  not  faithful  to  the  Greek,  viz. 
eis  ten  katapausin'  (Heb.  x.  3)— Rheims  "into  the 
rest,"  Protestant  "  into  rest,"  Challoner  "  into  rest." 
The  latest  revisers  of  the  Protestant  version  have  since 
confessed  this  mistake  by  attempting  to  cancel  it. 

The  Douay  Bible  up  to  the  time  of  Dr.  Challoner  le- 
mained  substantially  as  it  had  been  written.  There  had 
indeed  been  a  second  edition  of  its  Old  Testament,  but, 
as  we  have  seen,  without  alterations  or  corrections. 
There  had  also  been  during  the  same  period  five  edi- 
tions of  its  New  Testament.  But  it  seems  that  only 
in  the  last  of  these,  1738,  was  there  any  attempt  at  im- 
provement, and  that  attempt  resulted  only  in  moderniz- 
ing the  spelling,  and  making  a  few  verbal  alterations, 
leaving  the  New  Testament  almost  what  it  was  in  the 
edition  of  1600.  In  the  meantime,  many  alterations  had 
been  made  in  the  Protestant  version,  not  only,  as  is 
known,  to  correct  its  wilful  or  accidental  errors,  but  ik^ 
doubt  to  render  it  more  readable.  Dr.  Challoner,  in 
undertaking  his  revision,  proposed  not  only  to  modern- 
ize, but  to  popularize  the  Douay  Bible.  In  doing  so  it 
must  necessarily  have  happened  that,  even  though  he 
might  not  have  so  intended,  his  phraseology  in  many 
instances  coincided  with  that  of  the  Protestant  version, 
then  a  fair  standard  of  the  popular  style,  with  which 
he  wished  the  diction  of  the  Douay  Bible  to  harmonize. 
Cardinal  Newman  has  selected  at  hazard  Psalm  Hi. 
in  order  to  exemplify  the  nature  of  the  variations  be- 
tween the  Douay  version,  the  Protestant  version,  and 
Challoner's  revision  of  the  former.  There  are  in  the 
seven  verses  of  which  that  Psalm  consists  twenty-seven 


4o6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

variations.  In  all  of  these  the  sense  is  the  same,  except 
one,  in  which  Challoner,  of  course,  agrees  with  the 
Douay,  which,  being  derived  from  manuscripts  far  old- 
er than  those  accessible  to  King  James's  translators,  is 
more  reliable  than  the  Protestant  version.  D.  here  re- 
presents the  Douay  version,  P.  the  Protestant,  and  C. 
Challoner's  version. 

1.  Cases  where  P.  followes  D.,  and  C.  has  its  own  rendering,  3 

2.  "  "  D.,  P.,  and  C.  all  disagree,  6 

3.  "  "  D.,  P.,  and  C.  all  agree,  2 

4.  •'  "  P.  differs  from  D.,  and  C.  follows  D.,  8 

5.  "  "  P.  differs  from  D.,  and  C.  follows  P.,  8 


27 

D.' P.  and  C.  are  translations  oi  one  original.  For  the 
Vulgate,  of  which  D.  and  C.  may  be  regarded  as  distinct 
versions,  is  practically  identical  with  the  Hebrew  of  tiie 
Old  Testament  and  the  Greek  of  the  New.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  surprising  that  all  three  versions  in  many 
cases,  where  they  extract  the  same  sense  from  the  ori- 
ginal, should  express  that  sense  sometimes  in  the  same 
words,  somtimes  in  different  words.  For  it  is  alwa3^s 
s<:)  in  two  or  more  independent  translations  of  the  same 
work  into  the  same  language.  And  no  one  would  have 
a  right  to  say  that  the  more  modern  of  any  two  such 
translations  was  intended  to  follow  the  other,  because 
some  of  the  renderings  bv  the  former  are  identical  with 
some  of  the  other.  Now  let  the  reader  bear  this  in 
mind  while  examining  the  preceding  examples,  then 
say,  supposing  many  of  Challoner's  alterations  are  in  the 
direction  of  the  Protestant  version, — is  it  fair  to  con- 
clude or  to  insinuate  that  the  alterations  in  Challoner's 
revision,  or  in  any  of  the  editions  prepared  by  himself  or 
by  others,  were  suggested  by  anything  found  in  King 
James's  Bible  ?  Challoner's  revision  of  the  Douay  and 
Rheims  version  was  the  first  English  Catholic  Bible 
which    received  episcopal  sanction;  for,  being  a    vicar 


The  Douay  and  other  A  nglo-Calholk  I  \rshms.       407 

apostolic    when   tlie  first   revision  ..(    that    version    ap- 
peared, he  was  a  bishop  himself  at  that  time. 

The   efforts  to  provide  English   speaking   Cathohcs 
with  the  best  possible  copies  of  the  Holy  Scripture  dul 
not  end  with  the  life  of  Dr.  Challoner.     For  besides  h,s 
revision  and  the  various  editions  made  of  it  by  himself, 
not  only  numerous  other  editions  of  it,-some  dunng 
his  life,  most  of  them  subsequently,-but  independent 
revisions  of  the  Douay  Bible,  and,  at  least  in  one  m- 
stance,  a  direct  translation  of  the  four  Gospels  from  the 
Greek  have  been  issued  under  ecclesiastical  sanction  or 
from  Catholic  sources.     To  begin  with  Great  Bnta.n, 
there  is  Dr.  Hay's  Bible,  so  called  because  printed  in 
Edinburg.in  ,76.,  under  the  inspection  of  the  then  Rev., 
afterwards   Right   Rev.    Dr.    Hay,  one   of   the  \  .cars 
Apostolic  of  Scotland,  and  quite  favorably  known  by 
his  many  useful  writings.     His  Bible  consisted  of  five 
volumes  .2mo.     In  .804-1805  it  was  reprinted        n  l8u 
raanv  copies  of  it  were  imported  to  and  disposed  of  in  Ire- 
land'    At  the  same  time  a  Dublin  publisher  brought  out 
I'ts  New  Testament,  Archbishops  Troy  and  Murray  being 
among  the  subscribers.     Another  edition  of  this  New 
Testament  made  its  appearance  also  in  Dublin,  in  18 14. 
And  it  probably  supplied  the  text  to  an  edition  printed 
at  Belfast  in  ,817.    'This  Bible  generally  follows  Chal- 

loner's.  .  ,     ,  4.-       .f 

Dr  Gibson's  Bible.-Ih  1816-17,  with  the  sanction  of 
Dr  Gibson,  another  Bible,  which  closely  followed  ChaU 
loner's,  was  published  at  Liverpool  in  folio.  And  in 
18^2  a  reprint  of  it,  also  in  folio,  was  made  in  London. 
It  was  published  a  third  time  in  London,  in  folio,  under 
the  sanction  of  Dr.  Bramston,  then  vicar  apostolic. 

POYNTER'S  New  TESTAMENT-appeared  in  1815,  with 
an  address  by  Dr.  Poynter  and  under  the  supenntend- 
ence  of  Rev.  Dr.  Rigby,  afterwards  vicar  apostohc  of  the 
London  District.     The  text  agrees   with  that  of   Chal- 


4o8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstainenl . 

loner.  In  1818  a  new-edition  of  it  was  prepared  by  Rc\. 
Mr.  Horrabin,  under  the  sanction  of  Dr.  Poynter.  It 
was  in  i2mo.,  and  sold  at  a  very  low  price,  in  order  to 
place  it  within  reach  of  the  poorer  class.  Between  1824 
and  1 841  four  more  editions  of  it,  one  of  which  was 
printed  in  Dublin  with  the  Imprimatur  of  the  four  Irish 
Archbishops,  were  brought  out. 

Haydock's  Bible, — so  called  after  its  editor,  Rev. 
George  Leo  Haydock,  was  published  in  1811-12  and 
1 8 14,  in  Manchester  and  Dublin,  folio.  It  is  abundantly 
provided  with  useful  notes,  and  generall}-  adheres  to 
Challoner's  text.  In  1822  it  was  republished  in  octavo 
in  Dublin  with  shorter  notes.  Two  years  later  another 
edition  of  it  was  issued.  In  1845-48  it  was  reproduced 
with  unabridged  notes  in  Edinburg  and  London,  with 
the  approbation  of  the  Scotch  vicars  apostolic,  their  coad- 
jutors, and  several  archbishops  and  bishops  of  Ireland. 
In  1853  an  edition  of  it  in  quarto,  with  abridged  notes, 
was  prepared  by  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Husenbeth,  with  the  ap- 
probation of  his  own  superior.  Dr.  Waring,  and  the 
vicars  apostolic  of  Great  Britain. 

Syer's  Bible. — When  the  original  edition  of  Hay- 
dock's  Bible  was  being  prepared,  there  were  two  publish- 
ers, who  were  also  printers,  Mr.  Haydock  and  Oswald 
Syers,  the  latter  as  well  as  the  former  apparently  inter- 
ested in  the  enterprise.  Haydock  employed  his  own 
brother,  Rev.  George  Leo  Haydock,  as  editor  and  anno- 
tator,  while  Syer  succeded  in  issuing  a  rival  Bible,  also 
accompanied  with  notes,  but  without  anv  preface  or  any 
intimation  as  to  the  quarter  whence  the  notes  were 
derived.  Its  text  generally  coincides  with  that  of  Chal- 
loner.     It  was  published  in  Manchester,  in   1811-13. 

The  Glasgow  Bible. — This  was  an  edition  in  8vo  of 
one  published  by  Dr.  Murray  of  Dublin.  It  was  brought 
out  at  Glasgow  in  1833-36,  with  the  approbation  of  the 
vicars  apostolic  of  England  and  Scotland. 


The  Doiiay  and  otJicy-  Angh-Catholic  ]'ersions.      409 

Dr.  Lingard's  Four  Gospels. — Among  those  who 
labored  in  Great  Britain  for  promoting-  a  knowledge  of 
the  Scriptures  among  their  Catholic  countrymen,  the 
name  of  Dr.  Lingard,  the  celebrated  historian,  deserves 
honorable  mention.  His  translation  of  the  Four  Gospels 
from  the  Greek,  with  notes  critical  and  explanatory, 
was  published  anonj-mousl}-  in  1836. 

Cardinal  Wiseman's  Bible.— This  edition,  printed  in 
8vo  in  London,  in  the  year  1847,  has  the  approbation  of 
Dr.  Walsh,  Vicar  Apostolic,  and  Dr.  Wiseman,  his  coad- 
jutor. The  text,  instead  of  adhering  to  Dr.  Challoner's, 
rather  follows  that  of  Dr.  Troy,  of  which  more  immedi- 
ately. 

The  preceding  list  of  Catholic  Bibles  and  parts  there- 
of published  in  Great  Britian,  since  the  appearance  of 
the  Douay  version,  is  not  exhausted.  But  it  is  as  com- 
plete as  it  was  possible  to  make  it  with  the  means  at 
hand. 

The  efforts  made  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in 
Ireland  to  provide  the  people  of  that  country  with  gen- 
uine copies  of  the  Holy  Scripture  now  call  for  attention. 
It  has  already  been  seen  that  these  authorities  not  only 
gladly  availed  themselves  of  the  earliest  English  trans- 
lation of  the  Vulgate  made  by  English  refugees  in 
France,  and  of  subsequent  editions  of  it  issued  in  Great 
Britain,  but  were  the  first  to  recognize  the  linguistic 
defects  of  that  translation,  by  proposing  a  substitute,  and 
actually  publishing  an  independent  version  of  the  Vul- 
gate New  Testament.  In  fact,  the  members  of  the  Irish 
hierarchy,  almost  as  soon  as  a  relaxation  of  the  penal 
laws  against  their  religion  permitted  them  to  adopt 
measures  for  the  dissemination  of  the  Scriptures.-  had 
editions  of  the  Douay  version  published  throughout  the 
country.  And  the  following  brief  statement  will  show, 
that  their  zeal  and  success  in  the  performance  of  this 
part  of  their  duty  increased,  according  as   the  restric- 


4IO  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

tions  imposed  on  the  practice  and  profession  of  their 
belief  by  an  intolerant  government  were  gradually 
removed. 

Dr.  Troy's  Bible.— In  1783  Rev.  Bernard  McMahon, 
a  Dublin  priest,  published  his  first  edition  of  the  New 
Testament,  in  12 mo,  with  the  formal  approbation  of  his 
archbishop,  Dr.  Carpenter.  It  was  made  on  the  basis 
of  Dr.  Challoner's,  but  still  with  considerable  changes 
of  text.  In  1 79 1  the  same  clergyman  was  selected  by 
Dr.  Troy  to  superintend  an  edition  of  the  whole  Bible 
in  quarto.  From  the  approbation  of  Archbishop  Troy 
it  appears,  that  this  edition  w^as  "  carefully  collated  with 
the  Clementine  Vulgate,  the  Douay  Old  Testament  of 
1609,  the  Rheims  New  Testament  of  1582,  and  with  the 
London  Old  and  New  Testament  of  1752,  approved 
English  versions."  In  1794  it  was  reprinted  in  folio. 
There  followed,  in  1803,  another  edition  of  the  Ncav  Tes- 
tament in  i2mo;  and  in  1810  still  another,  also  in  i2mo. 
In  1820,  with  the  approbation  of  Dr.  Troy,  an  edition  of 
the  New  Testament,  distinct  from  the  series  of  which 
Rev.  B.  McMahon  was  the  reviser,  made  its  appearance. 
There  are  no  notes  appended  to  the  chapters  or  verses, 
the  sacred  text  standing  absolutely  by  itself,  though  a 
supplement  is  added  wnth  the  usual  notes,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  discretion  of  the  publisher,  might  or  might  not 
be  bound  up  wath  it.  This  was  no  doubt  done  in  order 
to  reduce  the  cost  as  much  as  possible,  and  thus  enable 
the  poor  to  secure  copies.  Of  this  edition  20,000  copies 
were  struck  off.  In  1825  copies  of  it  were  reissued  in 
London.  Its  text  is  said  to  agree  exactly  with  Challon- 
er's second  edition  of  1750. 

Dr.  Murray's  Bible. — Archbishop  Murray  of  Dublin, 
in  1825,  had  an  edition  of  the  Bible  in  8vo  published  and 
stereotyped.  Fresh  impressions  of  it  were  produced 
from  time  to  time  in  1829,  33,  40,  44,  47,  etc.  The  impres- 
sion of  '47  is  in  the  possession  of  the  present  writer. 


The  Donay  and  other  Anglo-Catholic  Versions.        411 

Tn  fact,  the  reprinting  of  this  and  several  of  the  other 
Bibles  current  in  Ireland,  England,  and  the  United 
States  is  in  almost  constant  operation,  and  the  price  is 
generally  so  low  that  every  Catholic  household  finds  it 
an  easy  matter  to  provide  itself  with  a  copy  of  the 
whole  Bible,  or  at  least  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
text  of  Dr.  Murray's  Bible  generally  follows  that  of  Dr. 
Challoner's.  It  has  given  so  much  satisfaction,  that  it  has 
been  selected  as  a  sort  of  standard  for  some  editions 
since  issued,  both  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  The 
notes  are  few  and  brief,  but  the  references  quite  numer- 
ous. 

Dr.  Blake's  New  Testament. — This  edition  in  8vo. 
was  brought  out  at  Newry,  in  1838,  and  appears  to  adopt 
the  text  of  Dr.  Murray,  agreeing  with  the  early  editions 
of  Dr.  Challoner.     It  was  reprinted  in  Belfast,  1846-47. 

Dr.  Denvir's  Bible. — Bishop  Denvir  commenced  his 
series  of  New  Testaments  about  1836.  Fresh  issues  are 
dated  1839,  4^>  43'  45'  ^'^cl  nearly  every  succeeding  year. 
They  were  extremely  cheap,  having  been  struck  off  from 
stereotype  plates.  A  copy  now  at  hand,  and  dated  1839, 
contains  the  letter  of  Pius  V.  recommending  "  the  read- 
ing of  the  Holy  Scripture,"  and  is  followed  by  the  assur- 
ance that  it  was  diligently  compared  with  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate, and  by  the  approbation  of  "  f  C.  Denvir,  D.D.R.C. 
Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor."  The  preface  is  b}'  Rev. 
Daniel  Curoe,  P.P.,  Randalstown.  In  it  the  reader  is  in- 
formed that,  "  in  compliance  with  the  request  of  two  dis- 
tinguished prelates,"  probably  Archbishop  Crolly  of 
Armagh,  and  Bishop  Denvir  just  mentioned,  "  under 
whose  sanction  extremely  cheap  editions  have  been 
executed  in  Belfast,  publishers  of  the  first  respectability 
have  furnished  an  authentic  statement  recording  the 
sale  of  three  hundred  thousand  copies  of  the  Douay 
Version."  The  text  of  this  series  very  generally  agrees 
with  Dr.  Murray's.      The  same  bishop  had  the  whole 


412  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Bible  published    in    1839.     ^"    another   issue    of  Bibles 
his  name  appears  in  conjunction  with  Dr.  CroUy's,  in 
1846  and  52. 

Dr.  McHale's  New  Testament. — Both  the  text  and 
notes  of  this  edition,  it  is  said,  agree  with  Dr.  Murray's 
Bible,  published  in  1825. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 


Editions  and  Revisions  of  the  Douay  Bible  in  the 
United  States,  and  of  Various  other  Versions 
OF  the  Vulgate  made  into  other  Languages 
than  English,  and  Republished  there. 

It  now  remains  to  be  seen  what  has  been  done  in  the 
United  States  to  provide  English  speaking  Catholics 
with  the  word  of  God.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  many 
of  the  early  Catholic  colonists,  from  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  brought  with  them  to  this  country  the  Bible, 
which  they  possessed  in  their  native  land.  For  the 
Bible,  or  at  least  the  New  Testament,  as  well  as  the 
prayer  book,  the  catechism,  crucifix,  and  rosary  gen- 
erally constitute  a  part  of  the  appurtenances  found 
in  every  Catholic  household,  however  humble.  But  as 
about  the  close  of  the  last  century  our  native  Catholic 
citizens,  together  with  the  immigrant  Catholics  from 
the  different  countries  of  the  Old  World,  and  the  con- 
verted Indians,  did  not  amount  to  40,000,  '  and  a  hier- 
archy had  not  yet  been  instituted,  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  no  publisher  had  sufificient  courage  or 
enterprise  to  undertake  an  American  edition  of  the 
Douay  Bible,  or  of  any  other  Bible  based  upon  it. 
Right  Rev.  John  Carroll,  a  native  of  Maryland,  who 
had  been  appointed  Prefect  Apostolic  by  Pius  VI.  in 
1784,  was,  on  Nov. 6,  1789,  appointed  Bishop  of  Baltimore, 
with  the  entire  territory  belonging  to  the  United  States 

1  The  nieranhyof  the  Cath.  Church  in  the  United  States,  p.  53.  By  John 
Gilmary  Shea,  LL.  D. 

413 


414  ^/^^'  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstanioit. 

for  his  diocese.  His  consecration  took  place  in  England, 
August  15  of  the  following  year;  and  in  the  same  year 
the  first  American  Catholic  Bible  was  published.  Ever 
since,  from  time  to  time,  as  the  following  brief  details 
will  show,  edition  after  edition  has  issued  from  the  press 
of  the  country,  as  abundantly  and  as  cheaply  as  the 
Avants  and  means  of  the  faithful  demanded. 

Carey's  Quarto  Bible,  1790,  Philadelphia.  Printed 
and  sold  by  Carey,  Stewart  &  Co.,  MDCCXC.  It  is, 
as  far  as  the  text  is  concerned,  a  reprint  of  Challoner's 
second  edition  of  the  Bible.  It  contained  the  approba- 
tion of  the  first  edition  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  ap- 
probation of  the  first  edition  of  the  New  Testament  by 
the  University  of  Rheims,  and  the  approbation  of  the  cor- 
rected edition  of  the  New  Testament  published  in  1750. 

In  1 791  Dr.  Troy's  edition  of  the  whole  Bible  ap- 
peared, and  as  it  had  given  very  general  satisfaction, 
Carey,  some  years  later,  issued  a  reprint  of  it  also,  which  is 
designated:  Carey's  Quarto  Bible;  1805,  Philadelphia. 
Published  by  Matthew  Carey,  No.  122  Market  Street, 
Oct.  15,  MDCCCV.  It  is  a  reproduction  of  Dr.  Troy's 
fifth  Dublin  edition,  with  maps  of  Palestine  and  the 
land  of  Moriah,  including  illustrations  of  persons  and 
scenes  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament.  Carey's 
Quarto  Testament  deserves  distinct  mention,  as  Carey 
struck  off,  separately,  copies  of  the  New  Testament 
contained  in  his  Quarto  Bible  of  1805. 

Duffy's  New  Testament. — In  1817  W.  Duffy  pub- 
lished an  edition  of  the  New  Testament  in  i2mo,  at 
Georgetown.  It  contained  in  Latin  the  approbation 
given  to  the  original  Douay  Bible  by  the  Universities 
of  Rheims  and  Douay,  and  was  published  with  the  per- 
mission of  "  Leonard,  Archbishop  of  Baltimore,"  who 
declared  that,  "  it  had  been  found  strictly  conformable 
to  the  Dublin  edition  of  the  same  work  printed  in  1811, 
and  also  that  printed  in   18 14."     The  publisher  of  this 


The  Dotiay  and  ot  Iter  ]\^rsions  of  the  ]^nlgatc  in  the  U.  S.  415 

Georgetown  edition  announced  in  some  of  the  copies 
his  intention  of  issuing  an  edition  of  the  entire  Bible,  a 
project  which,  it  seems,  was  never  completed,  but  it  led 
to  the  following  edition  in  1824. 

Cummiskey's  Octavo  Bible,  1824. — This  edition  was 
published  at  Philadelphia  by  Eugene  Cummiskey  and 
stereotyped  by  J.  Howe.  It  was  sanctioned  and  rec- 
ommended by  "  Henrv  Conwell,  Bishop  of  Philadelphia," 
declaring  that  it  had  "  been  carefully  copied  from  the 
fifth  Dublin  edition."  Later  impressions  contained  the 
approbations  of  Bishop  Kenrick,  who  succeeded  Dr. 
Conwell,  Archbishop  Eccleston  of  Baltimore,  and  Bish- 
op Hughes  of  New  York. 

Cummiskey'.s  Octavo  New  Testament,  1824, — de- 
serves to  be  mentioned,  as  it  was  published  and  sold 
separately  from  the  whole  Bible  printed  the  same  year. 
Cummiskey's  Quarto  Bible,  1824. — This  edition 
was  also  brought  out  at  Philadelphia,  with  the  approba- 
tion of  Dr.  Conwell.  The  text  follows  Dr.  Troy's  Bible, 
and  is  accompanied  by  Dr.  Challoner's  annotations, 
and  the  volume  is  embellished  with  illustrations  of 
scenes  described  therein. 

Cummiskey's  Folio  Haydock,  Philadelphia,  1825. — 
This  is  a  reprint  of  Haydock's  Bible,  Manchester, 
181 1- 14,  fol.  It  has  the  original  approbation  of  the  latter, 
as  well  as  that  of  Dr.  Conwell.  Besides  the  sacred  text, 
it  contains  much  useful  and  pertinent  matter,  and  is  em- 
bellished with  several  superb  engravings. 

Cummiskey's  New  Testament  in  32mo,  1829.  Phil- 
adelphia. Stereotyped  by  J.  Conner,  New  York.  This 
edition  claims  to  be  "published  with  permission."  The 
text  is  mainly  that  of  Challoner's  published  in  1752,  as 
we  are  informed,  though  the  editor  says  it  is  "  From 
the  fifth  Dublin  edition." 

Cummiskey's  Duodecimo  New  Testament,  Phila- 
delphia, supposed  to  belong  to  1829,  stereotyped  by  J, 


4 1 6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Conner,  New  York,  and  approved  by  Bishop  Con  well. 
— The  text  mainly  follows  Dr.  Challoner's  of  1749. 

Lucas's  Duodecimo  New  Testament  was  published  at 
Baltimore,  by  Fielding  Lucas  Jr.,  approved  and  recom- 
mended by  Archbishop  Whitfield.  It  was  printed  from 
the  plates  of  Cummiskey's  duodecimo  of  1829,  and  of 
course  follows  the  same  text. 

Lucas's  32MO,  New  Testament  with  annotations  and 
references,  was  issued  at  Baltimore  by  the  same  pub- 
Hsher  and  approved  by  the  same  authority.  In  other 
respects  it  is  the  same  as  Cummiskey's  32mo,  from  the 
plates  of  which  it  is  printed. 

The  Devereux  New  Testament,  Utica,  1829,  "  Ap^ 
proved  by  the  Right.  Rev.  John  Dubois,  Catholic  Bish- 
op  of  New  York." — This  edition  was  stereotyped  and 
printed  at  Utica  by  William  Williams,  for  the  proprie- 
tors, at  whose  instance  and  expense  the  enterprise  was 
started  and  completed,  in  order  to  provide  the  Catholic 
schools  of  Utica  with  cheap  copies  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  text  is  that  of  Challoner's,  belonging  to  the 
year  1750,  and  is  taken  from  the  Dublin  edition  of  1820; 
copies  of  the  year  1840  have  the  name  of  Thomas  Davis. 

Lucas's  Quarto  Bible,  Baltimore,  1832. — This  is  print- 
ed from  the  plates  of  Cummiskey's  quarto.  It  omits  ap- 
probation of  Bishop  of  Philadelphia,  and  some  other 
matters  preceding  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament.  In 
other  respects  it  conforms  to  Cummiskey's  of  1824. 

Doyle's  Octavo  Bible,  New  York,  1833. —  Published 
by  John  Doyle  with  the  approbation  of  the  Right  Rev. 
John  Dubois,  Catholic  Bishop  of  New  York,  and  stereo- 
typed by  Conner  and  Cooke.  The  text  is  that  of  Dr. 
Murray,  of  1825. 

The  American  Protestant  Octavo  Reprint  of  the 
Rheims  New  Testament,  1834.  The  source  and  purpose 
of  this  edition  are  such  that  it  demands  more  than  a  pass- 
ing notice.     Here,  then,  are  the  contents  of  its  title-page  : 


The  Doiiay  and  other  Versions  of  the  Vulgate  in  the  U.  S.  417 

"  The  I  New  Testament  |  of  Our  |  Lord  and  Saviour 
I  Jesus  Christ,  |  translated  out  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  | 
diligently  compared  with  the  original  Greek,  |  and  first 
published  by  |  the  English  College  of  Rheims,  [  Anno. 
1582.  I  With  the  I  original  preface,  |  arguments  and  ta- 
bles, I  marginal  notes  |  and  |  annotations.  |  To  which  are 
now  added  |  an  introductory  essay,  |  and  a  j  complete 
topical  and  textual  index.  |  New  York  ;  |  Published 
by  Jonathan  Leavitt  |  182  Broadway.  |  Boston  :  Crock- 
er &  Brewster,  |  47  Washington  Street.  |  1834 

(p.  2.)    Copyright. 

(pp.  3-4)    Notice,  Recommendations,  and  Certificate. 

(p.  5-8)    Introductory  Address. 

458  pp.    Sigs.,  1-39. 

The  McNAMARAand  Cum.mings  edition  of  18 16,  which 
is  referred  to  in  a  preceding  page,  '■  had  been  prepared  in 
Ireland  at  a  time  of  great  pohtico-religious  excitement, 
consequent  on  the  efforts  of  the  Catholics  to  secure 
constitutional  emancipation  from  the  civil  and  eccle- 
siastical disabilities,  of  which  they  had  been  the  victims 
for  centuries.  This  tardy  act  of  justice  was  strenuous- 
ly opposed  throughout  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  by  a 
powerful  and  intolerant  party  in  and  out  of  Parliament, 
and  every  scheme  was  welcomed  by  it  which  seemed 
likely  to  result  unfavorably  to  the  just  claims  of  an  op- 
pressed people.  Itinerant  preachers,  some  of  them  men 
of  respectable  attainments,  were  employed  to  arouse 
the  latent  loyalty  of  Irish  Protestants.  The  C(mtents 
of  Catholic  prayer  books,  the  cases  discussed  in  Dens' 
theology,  the  notes  of  the  Rhemish  New  Testament,  etc., 
were  all  ransacked  for  arguments  to  prove  that  the 
principles  of  the  Catholic  religion  were  dangerous  to  the 
State  and  irredeemably  wicked.  And  as  if  to  establish 
this  conclusion  out  of  the  very  mouths  of  those  whose 
position  called  for  its  refutation,  priests  here  and  there 

'  p.  400. 


41 8  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament. 

were  challenged  to  defend  their  creed  pubHclj  against 
those  mercenary  crusaders,  who  came  prepared,  so  they 
said,  to  prove  that  creed  a  monstrous  mass  of  superstition ; 
and  common  Protestantism,  with  all  its  variations  and 
contradictions,  the  religion  of  the  Gospel.  Rencontres 
between  priests  and  preachers  became  quite  common. 
All  over  Ireland  public  meetings  were  announced  and 
held,  at  which  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  religions 
were  discussed,  several  of  these  discussions  being  con- 
sidered of  such  importance  that  the  speeches  of  the  re- 
spective champions  appeared  in  the  local  newspapers. 
In  other  cases  the  proceedings  were  published  in  book 
form.  That  was  so  in  reference  to  the  memorable  dis- 
cussion which  took  place  in  Dublin  between  Pope  and 
Maguire  in  1827,  and  lasted  six  days.  It  was  also  so, 
when  in  1828,  at  Londonderr}^  an  oral  discussion  was 
carried  on,  for  six  days  also,  between  six  Catholic 
clergymen  on  one  side  and  an  equal  number  of  Prot- 
estant ministers  on  the  other.  Copies  of  the  former 
discussion  can  easily  be  obtained.  But  those  of  the  lat- 
ter are  exceedingl}'  rare,  as  the  book  has  been  long  since 
out  of  print.  On  such  occasions,  the  champions  of  Prot- 
estantism rarely  neglected  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
annotations  appended  to  the  text  of  the  original  Rheims 
New  Testament.  Those  annotations  had  been  always 
objectionable  to  Irish  and  English  Catholics,  as  the}- 
misrepresented  their  principles  and  had  been,  soon  after 
they  appeared,  disavowed  by  them,  although  with  the 
exception  of  its  Latinisms  no  fault  was  found  with  the 
translation  itself.  But  fortunatel}^  for  the  success  of 
those  ardent  Protestants  who  were  opposed  to  Catholic 
emancipation,  McNamara  and  Cummings  had  published 
an  edition  of  the  Rheims  New  Testament  with  those 
original  annotations,  which  had  long  ceased  to  appear  in 
connection  with  that  volume.  That  edition  became  at 
once  one  of  the    most    serviceable    weapons   (so    they 


The  Douay  and  other  Versions  of  the  Vulgate  in  the  U.  5.  419 

thought)  in  the  hands  of  those  who  believed  that  bare 
toleration  for  their  religion  was  the  only  privilege  that 
could  be  safely  granted  to  the  Catholics  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland 

Irish  Protestants  are  a  good  deal  more  hearty  in  their 
hatred  of  the  Catholic  religion,  and  much  more  unscru- 
pulous in  their  use  of  means  for  opposing  it,  than 
English  Protestants.  The  feelings  of  the  former  in  this 
respect  have  been  inherited  by  a  large  number  of  their 
descendants  in  the  United  States,  where  they  contrive 
in  some  measure,  to  inoculate  otherwise  just  and  liberal 
neighbors  with  the  virus  that  runs  in  their  own  veins. 
Opposed,  like  their  fathers  before  them,  to  religious 
toleration,  they  seemed  to  have  watched  with  consider- 
able interest  the  progress  of  the  struggle  for  liberty  of 
conscience  in  Ireland  and  Great  Britain,  and  no  doubt 
were  somewhat  disappointed  at  the  partial  victory  ob- 
tained there  in  1829  by  the  advocates  of  equal  civil  and 
religious  rights. 

Hitherto  there  was  nothing  to  indicate,  that  American 
Catholics  would  ever  constitute  more  than  a  mere  frac- 
tion of  the  population.  They  were  too  contemptible  in 
number  and  influence  to  deserve  notice,  much  less  to 
excite  opposition.  But  before  the  doors  of  the  Britisli 
Parliament  were  thrown  open  to  Catholics,  and  the  strug- 
gle for  religious  equality  was  thus  more  than  half  over 
in  Ireland  and  Great  Britain,  a  Catholic  hierarchy  com- 
posed of  an  Archbishop  and  eleven  bishops  had  already 
been  established  in  the  United  States  ;  where,  moreover, 
the  increase  of  the  Catholic  population,  of  Catholic 
churches,  of  Catholic  educational  institutions,  and  of 
Catholic  religious  communities  had  been  so  sudden,  so 
prodigious,  as  to  excite  alarm  among  those  who  believed, 
or  pretended  to  think,  that  the  growth  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  any  countrv  was  dangerous  to  civil  and  relig- 
ious liberty.      There  were  persons  who  thought  or  said 


420  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

so  then.  There  are  some  who  think  or  say  so  still,  as  if 
Christian  civilization  and  Christian  liberty  were  not  the 
creation  of  the  Catholic  Church,  or  could  be  established 
or  maintained  on  other  principles  than  those  which  dis- 
tinguish her  teaching. 

Well,  it  happened  about  the  time  when  it  was  per- 
ceived that  American  Catholicity  was  likely  to  become 
an  important  factor  in  shaping  the  future  of  the  Repub- 
lic, that  the  political  and  religious  controversies  which 
grew  out  of  the  struggle  for  religious  liberty  in  Ireland 
were  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  those  ardent  patriots, 
Avho  believed  that  this  is  and  should  be  a  Protestant 
country,  and  that  the  spread  of  the  Catholic  religion 
should  be  placed  under  such  restrictions  as  would 
relieve  the  minds  of  every  loyal  citizen  from  all  appre- 
hension regarding  the  safety  of  our  free  institutions. 
Something,  therefore,  according  to  the  views  which 
those  devoted  guardians  of  the  Republic  entertained, 
had  to  be  done.  It  is  unnecessary  here,  however,  to 
state  what  shape  that  something  did  actually  take.  But 
it  was  to  be  expected,  that  some  of  the  means  resorted 
to  in  Ireland  and  England  for  resisting  what  was  called 
Catholic  aggression,  would  be  adopted  here.  A  regular 
fusillade  from  the  Protestant  press  was  opened  along  the 
whole  line.  Rev.  John  Breckenridge,  a  Presbyterian 
preacher,  as  the  champion  of  conglomerate  Protestant- 
ism, challenged  the  then  Rev.  John  Hughes.  A  written 
discussion  followed  in  1830,  which  was  kept  up  for  some 
time  in  the  public  papers,  and  at  last  led,  in  1834,  to  an 
oral  controversy  between  the  two,  in  Philadelphia.  The 
West  caught  the  contagion,  and  the  Purcell  and  Camp- 
bell controversy  in  1837,  with  others  of  less  note.  East 
and  West,  followed.  In  fact,  there  were  few  large  cities 
throughout  the  Union  where  an  effort  was  not  made  to 
excite  hostility  to  the  Catholic  Church,  by  appealing  to 
the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  masses.    In  the  Irish 


TJu  Douay  and  other  ]^crsions  of  tJic  ]'ulgatciiithe  U.  S.  421 

campaign  against  Catholic  emancipation,  the  opponents 
of  that  measure  had  made  good  use  of  the  original 
Rheims  New  Testament,  and  why  should  not  their 
friends  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  avail  themselves  ol 
the  same  weapon  in  pushing  forward  the  unholy  crusade 
in  which  they  were  engaged.  An  edition,  therefore,  of 
this  New  Testament,  with  its  original  objectionable  an- 
notations, appeared  at  New  York,  under  Protestant 
auspices,  in  the  year  1834;  although  the  leaders  of  the 
enterprise  must  have  been  well  aware  that  Bishop 
Doyle,  who  died  in  that  year,  while  under  oath,  and 
representing  the  sentiments  of  the  Irish  hierarchy  before 
a  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords,  declared,  when 
asked,  "  You  consider  yourselves  pledged  to  all  matters 
contained  in  these  notes?  "  '*  No,  not  by  any  means;  on 
the  contrary,  there  were  notes  affixed,  I  believe,  to  the 
Rhemish  Testament,  which  were  most  objectionable  ; 
and,  on  being  presented  to  us,  we  caused  them  to  be 
expunged." 

As  stated  in  a  preceding  page,  this  American  Prot- 
estant edition  of  the  Rhemish  New  Testament,  besides 
the  text  and  notes,  contained  some  fresh  matter,  for 
which  it  was  indebted  to  the  industry  of  the  zealous 
gentlemen  who  were  the  first  as  well  as  the  last  to  in- 
troduce it  to  American  readers.  This  extraneous  mat- 
ter consisted  principalh'  of  a  notice,  recommendations, 
certificate,  and  introductory  address.  The  notice  and 
recommendations  bear  the  signatures  of  over  a  hundred 
Protestant  clergymen.  The  certificate  is  signed  "  John 
Breckenridge;  William  C.  Brownlee,  D.D. ;  Thomas  De 
Witt,  D.D.;  Duncan  Dunbar;  Archibald  Maclay  ; William 
Patton" — and  declares,  ''  after  examination  we  do  hereby 
certifv  that  the  present  reprint  is  an  exact  and  faithful 
copy  of  the  original  work,  without  abridgment  or  addi- 
tion, exce})t  that  the  Latin  of  a  few  phrases,  which 
were  translated  bv  the  annotators,  and  some  uninipor- 


422  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

tant  expletive  words,  were  undesignedly  omitted."  As 
the  edition  was  intended  not  to  edify,  but  to  insult 
Catholics,  and  foster  the  unkind  feelings  with  which 
they  were  regarded  at  the  time  by  not  a  few  of  their 
fellow-citizens,  its  reverend  sponsoi"s  hesitate  not  to  use 
such  opprobrious  language  as  Papists,  Popish,  RoviisJi,  and 
Romanists,  when  referring  to  the  Church,  her  doctrines, 
or  her  members.  Nor  were  they  any  way  loath,  when 
introducing  that  edition,  to  substitute  fiction  for  fact, 
or  to  impose  on  the  credulity  of  their  readers  by 
positive  statements  regarding  matters  about  which  they 
themselves,  judged  by  those  statements,  knew  as  little  as 
those  in  whose  interest  or  for  whose  stratification  thev 
wrote.  Thus  they  speak  of  the  English  College  at 
Rheims  as  a  Jesuit  College,  and  the  writers  of  the  Eng- 
lish translation  of  the  Vulgate  New  Testament  prepared 
at  Rheims  as  Jesuits,  whereas  the  Jesuits  had  nothing 
to  do  with  that  College  or  that  translation.  The  for- 
mer was  conducted  and  the  latter  written  by  English 
secular  priests  connected  neither  with  the  Jesuits  nor 
an)-  other  religious  order.  The  word  Jesuit,  however, 
was  a  handy  one.  under  the  circumstances.  For,  at  the 
time  it  was  as  serviceable  among  anti-Romanists  as  bug- 
bear among  the  timid  inmates  of  the  nurser)^  at  all  times. 
In  the  introductory  address,  which  brought  the  veri- 
table Rheims  New  Testament  and  its  awful  notes  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  American  Protestant  public,  the  refer- 
ence to  the  McNamara  Bible  was  also  quite  mislead- 
ing, and  the  reader  left  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  that 
edition,  which  at  the  time  of  the  strugo:le  for  Catholic 
emancipation  furnished  a  useful  topic  for  inflaming  the 
public  mind,  was  started  as  a  speculation  by  a  Catholic 
book-seller  and  a  Protestant  printer;  and  on  the  failure 
of  the  former  was  completed  by  the  latter,  who,  accord- 
ing to  Archdeacon  Cotton,  sent  most  of  the  copies  to 
America.     Drawing   on  the  inexhaustible  resources  of 


The  Doiiay  and  otJicr  ]\-rsions  of  the  1  ^ulgate  in  the  U.  S.  423 

their  own  imagination,  the  writers  of  the  introduction 
further  inform  the  American  Protestant  public,  that  only 
mutilated  Bibles  were  permitted  to  be  published  and 
sold  among  Catholics  in  this  country,  while  European 
copies  were  constantly  imported  and  privately  sold  to 
the  initiated  only,  who  had  to  obtain  an  order  for  that 
purpose  from  the  vicar-generals  of  the  different  dioceses. 
In  no  diocese  was  there  ever  such  a  rule  or  custom,  and 
no  man,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  here  or  elsewhere,  has 
ever  seen  a  mutilated  English  Bible,  except  mutilated 
copies  of  the  one  "  translated  out  of  the  original  tongues 
by  his  Majesty's  special  command,"  such  mutilated 
copies  being  often  put  in  circulation  here  among  those 
English  speaking  non-Catholics  who  profess  some  one 
of  the  creeds  manufactured  in  the  sixteenth  and  follow- 
ing centuries,  or  profess  no  creed  in  particular.  The 
American  Protestant  edition  of  the  Rheims  New  Testa- 
ment, like  the  McNamara  Bible,  was  probably  a  failure. 
Though  stereotyped,  no  doubt  in  anticipation  of  an  im- 
mense sale,  it  was  never  reprinted,  and,  like  man}-  other 
productions  of  polemical  rancor,  has  long  since  sunk  in- 
to utter  oblivion. 

Lucas's  Octavo  Bible,— 1837,  published  by  Fielding 
Lucas,  Baltimore,  and  containing  annotations  of  Dr. 
Challoner,  was  a  reprint  of  Dr.  Troy's  Bible  of  179 1.  It 
had  the  approbation  of  the  Provincial  Council,  consist- 
ing of  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  and  nine  bishops. 

CuMMisKEv's  Duodecimo  New  Testament, — 1840, 
was  published  at  Philadelphia,  by  Eugene  Cummiskey, 
with  the  approbation  of  the  Right  Rev.  Francis  Patrick 
Kenrick,  and  the  Right  Rev.  John  Hughes.  The  text 
is  from  Murray's  1825. 

Sadlier's  Duodecimo  New  Testament, — 1842,  pub- 
lished by  D.  &  J.  Sadlier,  New  York,  is  from  the  plates 
of  the  Devereux  edition,  L^tica.  It  has  the  approbation 
of  Dr.  Dubois;  later  editions  have  that  of  Dr.  Hughes. 


424  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

DuMGAx's  Octavo  Bible, — 1844,  was  published  at 
New  York  by  Edward  Dunigan,  with  the  approbation 
of  the  Right  Rev.  John  Hughes,  Bishop  of  New  York. 
It  contains  several  steel  plates,  illustrative  of  scriptural 
scenes  and  personages.  It  is  from  the  last  London  and 
Dublin  editions,  the  plates  used  being  those  of  Doyle's 
octavo  of  1833. 

Sadlier's  Quarto  Bible, — 1845,  published  by  D.  & 
J.  Sadlier,  New  York,  with  the  approbation  of  the  Right 
Rev.  Bishop  Hughes.  It  is  revised  and  corrected  accord- 
ing to  the  Clementine  edition  of  the  Vulgate,  contains 
Dr.  Challoner's  annotations,  with  Ward's  Errata,  and  is 
a  verbatim  reprint  of  Cummiskey's  quarto  of  1824.  It 
is  embellished  with  a  number  of  steel  engravings.  Later 
editions  have  the  approbation  of  Archbishops  Hughes, 
Kenrick,  Purcell,  and  Bishops  John  McCloskey,  Fitz- 
patrick,  Timon. 

Dunigan'.s  i8mo  New  Testament,— 1845,  published 
by  Edward  Dunigan.  New  York,  and  approved  by  the 
Most  Rev.  John  Hughes,  Archbishop  of  New  York.  It 
was  printed  from  the  plates  of  a  Belfast  edition.  Sub- 
sequent impressions  were  made  by  Edward  Dunigan 
&  Brother. 

Hewett's  Illustrated  Octavo  New  Testament, 
1848-50,  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  diligently  com- 
pared with  the  original  Greek. — This  edition  was  illu- 
minated after  original  designs  by*W.  H.  Hewett,  Esq., 
New  York;  Hewett  &  Spooner,  106  Liberty  Street; 
John  J.  Reed,  Printer,  16  Spruce  Street.  It  received 
a  flattering  approval  from  Right  Rev.  John  Hughes, 
Bishop  of  New  York,  and  recommendations  from  Arch- 
bishop Eccleston,  Baltimore  ;  Bishops  Kenrick,  Rappe, 
Blanc,  Reynolds,  Whelan.  It  does  not  follow  the 
Rheims  version  or  Challoner's  revision  of  that  version. 
It  was  edited  bv  Rev.  James  McMahon,  and  conforms 
to  the  division  of  verses  in  the  Clementine  edition  of  the 


The  Douayand  otJicr  Versions  of  the  ]'iilgate  in  the  U.  S.  425 

Vulgate.     The  editor  availed  himself  of  the  Greek,  and 
of  the  li<^ht  which  Hebrew  throws  on  the  Hebraisms  in 

St.  Paul. 

Kenrick's  Four  Gospf.ls,— published  by  Edward 
Dunigan  &  Brother,  1849,  New  York.  This  edition, 
translated  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  diligently  com- 
pared with  the  original  Greek  text,  was  intended  as  a 
revision  of  the  Rheraish  translation  by  the  Right  Rev- 
Francis  Patrick  Kenrick,  Bishop  of  Philadelphia,  after- 
wards Archbishop  of  Baltimore.  The  learned  prelate 
has  enhanced  the  value  of  this  revision  by  copious 
notes,  critical  and  explanatory,  and  a  map  of  Palestine. 

Tallis's  Folio  Bible,— 1850,  was  never  completed. 
It  was  undertaken  by  the  house  of  Tallis,  Willoughby 
&  Co.,  London  and  New  York,  and  entitled  "  The  Holy 
Bible,  translated  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  diligently 
compared  with  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek,  and  other 
editions  in  various  languages.  .  .  .  The  whole  revised  by 
the  Rev.  Geo.  L.  Haydock,  V.  G."  It  is  also  stated  that 
this  edition  is  recommended  to  the  Catholic  community 
by  the  Archbishop  of  New  York.  It  was  designed  as  a 
reprint  of  Dr.  Hamill's  edition,  which  appeared  in  Dub- 
lin in  1822. 

Kenrick's— edition  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Epis- 
tles of  St.  Paul,  the  Catholic  Epistles,  and  the  Apocalypse, 
with  notes  critical  and  explanatory,  published  by  Edward 
Dunigan  &  Brother,  New  York,  1851.  This  is  a  revi- 
sion of  the  Rhemish  translation  by  Rt.  Rev.  Francis 
Patrick  Kenrick,  then  Bishop  of  Philadelphia,  and  con- 
tains in  front  of  the  title  page  a  map  of  the  countries 
travelled  by  the  Apostles. 

Kenrick's— edition  of  the  Psalms,  Book  of  Wisdom, 
and  Canticle  of  Canticles,  with  notes  critical  and  explan- 
atory, published  by  Lucas  Brothers,  Baltimore,  1857. 
This  is  a  revised  and  corrected  edition  of  the  Douay 
version,  bv  Dr.  Kenrick  when  archbishop  of  Baltimore. 


4-6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Kenrick's — edition  of  the  Book  of  Job  and  the  Proph- 
ets, with  notes  critical  and  explanatory,  published  by 
Kelly,  Hedian  &  Piet,  Baltimore,  1859,  being  a  revised 
edition  of  the  Douay  version  by  Dr.  Kenrick,  Archbishop 
of  Baltimore. 

Kenrick's — edition  of  the  Pentateuch  with  notes  crit- 
ical and  explanatory,  published  by  Kelly,  Hedian  & 
Piet,  Baltimore,  i860.  This  edition  is  also  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Baltimore,  having  been  translated  from  the 
Vulgate  and  diligently  compared  with  the  original  text, 
and  is  a  revision  of  the  Douay  version. 

Kenrick's — edition  of  the  Historical  Books  of  the 
Old  Testament,  with  notes  critical  and  explanatory, 
published  by  Kelly,  Hedian  &  Piet,  Baltimore,  i860. 
This  has  been  derived  by  the  same  undefatigable  prelate 
from  the  same  sources  as  the  preceding,  and  like  it  is  a 
revision  of  the  Douay  version. 

Kenrick's — second  edition  of  his  New  Testament, 
with  notes  critical  and  explanatory  ;  published  by  Kelly, 
Hedian  &  Piet,  Baltimore,  1862.  This,  as  stated,  is  a 
revised  and  corrected  edition  of  the  one  already  issued 
by  Archbishop  Kenrick,  and  which  consisted  of  two  vol- 
umes, the  first  published  in  1849,  the  second  in  1851. 

Archbishop  Kenrick's  revision  of  the  Douay  and 
Rheims  version  of  the  Vulgate  is  a  very  valuable  contri- 
bution to  Biblical  literature.  Its  style  is  pure,  simple, 
and  dignified,  and  the  notes  with  which  it  is  enriched 
are  judicious,  learned,  and  instructive. 

Shea's  Pocket  Bible, — published  by  D.  &  J.  Sadlier, 
New  York,  1871.  This  edition  was  the  work  of  the  dis- 
tinguished scholar  John  Gilmary  Shea,  LL.D.,  w^ho,  in 
preparing  it,  followed  Challoner's  original  edition  of  1750, 
correctmg  only  manifest  misprints  and  supplying  omis- 
sions. Mr.  Shea  compared  his  edition  three  times  with 
the  Latin  text,  the  last  collation  being  completed  after 
the  plates  were  cast,  when,  unfortunately,    his   proofs 


TJie  Doiiay  and  oiJur  Versions  of  the  Vulgate  in  the  U.  S.  427 

were  destroyed  by  a  tire  which  occurred  in  the  printing- 
office.  The  most  serious  misprints  and  omissions  were, 
however,  carefully  attended  to  subsequently. 

Besides  the  English  American  editions  of  the  Sacred 
Scripture  enumerated  already,  others  in  various  foreign 
languages  were  also  published  in  the  United  States 
under  Catholic  auspices.     Thus — 

An  edition  of  De  Sacy's  French  translation  of  the  Vul- 
gate New  Testament,  printed  by  J.  T.  Buckingham  and 
approved  by  "John,  Bishop  of  Boston,"  appeared  in 
Boston  in  18 10,  with  the  title  :  "  Le  Nouveau  Testament 
de  Notre  Seigneur  Jesus  Christ  en  Frangais  sur  la  Vul- 
gate; traduction  de  L.  M.  de  Sacy.  Revue  sur  les  meil- 
leures  editions,  vol.  I.  or  II.,  Boston  :  De  I'imprimerie 
de  J.  T.  Buckingham,  18 10. 

Sadlier's  German  Bible,  1850. — This  was  a  stereo- 
typed edition  of  Allioli's  German  version  of  the  Vulgate. 
It  had  the  approbation  of  Bishop  Hughes,  but  contained 
only  extracts  from  the  notes  appended  to  the  text  by 
the  translator.  Its  title  was:  "Die  Heilige  Schrift 
iibersetzt  aus  dem  Lateinischen  Urtext.  Mit  der  Ge- 
nehmigung  des  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Hughes,  Bischof  von  New 
York.  Engraving,  Johannes  der  Taufer.  New  York, 
D.  &  J.  Sadlier. 

Die  Heilige  Schrift  des  Alten  Testamentes. — 
Aus  der  Vulgata  mit  Bezug  auf  den  Grundtext  neu 
iibersetzt,  von  Dr.  Joseph  Franz  Allioli,  mit  einer  Aus- 
wahl  seiner  Anmerkungen.  Herausgegeben  von  einem 
Priester  der  Versammlung  des  allerheiligsten  Erlosers, 
mit  Gutheissung  und  Approbation  des  HochwUrdigsten 
Bischofs  von  New  York,  Dr.  Johannes  Hughes.  New 
York:  D.  &  J.  Sadlier,  No.  58  Gold-Strasse ;  Boston: 
No.  72  Federal  Strasse.  Stereotypic  und  Druck  von 
H.  Ludwig  &  Comp.,  No.  70  Vesey  Strasse.  1850. 

Die  Heilige  Schrift  des  Neuen  Testamentes.— 
Aus  der  Vulo^ata  mit  Bezu<r  auf  den  Grundtext  neu  iiber- 


428  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

setzt,  von  Dr.  Joseph  Franz  AUioli,  mit  einer  Auswahl 
seiner  Anmerkungen.  Herausgegeben  von  einem  Prie- 
ster  der  Versammlung  des  allerheiligsten  Erlosers,  mit 
Gutheissung  und  Approbation  des  Hochwiirdigsten 
Bischofs  von  New  York,  Dr.  Johannes  Hughes.  Zu 
haben  bei  D.  &  J.  Sadlier,  149  William-Strasse,  1852. 

Dunigan's  Spanish  Testament,  1853, — El  Nuevo 
Testamento  de  Nuestro  Senor  y  Salvador  Jesu-Christo, 
nuevamente  traducido  de  la  Vulgata  latina  al  espanol, 
aclarado  el  sentido  de  algunas  liigares,  con  la  liiz  que 
dan  los  textos  originales  hebreo  y  griego  e  illustrado  con 
varias  notas,  sacados  de  los  santos  padres  y  expositores, 
sagrados,  por  el  exnio.  Sr.  Dn.  Felix  Ton-es  Amat,  obis- 
po  de  Astorga.  Lleva  anadidas  algunas  notas  tomadas 
del  P.  Scio  y  otros  calificados  interpretes,  con  la  apro- 
bacion  del  illmo.  fr.  Jose  S.  Alemany,  obispo  de  Monte- 
rey, California.  Primera  edicion  conforme  a  la  segunda 
del  obispo  Amat.  Cut  Nueva  York:  Eduardo  Dunigan 
y  hermano,  Calle  de  Fulton,  No.  151.  1853.  This  edi- 
tion was  prepared  by  the  then  Bishop  t)f  Monterey,  Rt. 
Rev.  Joseph  Sadoc  Alemany,  afterwards  archbishop  of 
San  Francisco,  who  added  many  new  notes  to  it. 

Coincidently  with  the  efforts  made  to  supply  all  the 
faithful  throughout  the  country  with  a  genuine  version 
of  the  \'ulgate  intelligible  to  each  one,  the  American 
Bible  Society,  as  a  means  of  promoting  the  object  of  its 
organization,  engaged  also  in  the  publication  of  versions 
of  the  Vulgate  originally  prepared  and  approved  bv 
episcopal  sanction  for  the  use  of  Catholics  living  on  the 
continent  of  Europe.  The  American  editions  of  those 
versions  brought  out  by  the  Society  were  of  course 
modified  so  as  to  promote  to  the  utmost  its  principles, 
without  exactly  exciting  the  suspicion  of  those  for 
whose  enlightenment  they  were  intended.  There  was, 
for  example — 

The  American   Bible  Societ3-'s  Spanish  New  Testa- 


The  Doiiav  and otJicr  Versions  of  tJic  Vulgate  in  tlic  U.  S.  429 

ment,  1819.  This  was  an  edition  of  Scio's  Spanish  trans- 
lation of  the  Vulgate  New  Testament.  It  was  printed 
in  New  York,  without  notes,  its  title-page  presenting  the 
following  contents  artistically  arranged  :  — 

"  El  Nuevo  Testamento  de  Nuestro  Senor  Jesu  Cris- 
to,  traducido  de  la  Biblia  Vulgata  Latina  en  Espanol  per 
el  rmo.  P.  Felipe  Scio  de  S.  Miguel,  obispo  electo  de 
Segovia.  Reimpreso  literal  y  diligentemente  conforme 
a  la  segunda  edicion  hecha  en  Madrid,  ano  de  1797. 
Revista  3^  corregida  por  su  mismo  traductor.  Jesus  les 
dixo  :  Errais,  no  sabiendo  las  Escritiiras.  S.  Mat.  cap., 
xxii.,  v.,  29.  Nueva  York  :  Edicion  estereotipa,  por 
Elihu  White.  A  costa  de  la  Sociedad  Americana  de  la 
Biblia,  ano  de  18 19. 

There  was  the  Spanish  Catholic  Bible,  issued  in  New 
York  by  the  Protestant  American  Bible  Society,  in  the 
year  1824.  It  was  an  edition  of  the  Spanish  translation 
made  by  Don  Felipe  Scio  de  San  Miguel  from  the  Vul- 
gate, and  printed  at  Madrid  in  1794.  In  the  American 
edition  the  notes  were  omitted.  Its  title  was  "  La  Biblica 
Sagrada  a  saber  :  el  antiguo  y  el  nuevo  Testamento, 
traducidos  de  la  Vulgata  Latina  en  Espanol  por  el  rmo. 
P.  Felipe  Scio  de  S.  Miguel,  obispo  electo  de  Segovia. 
Nueva  edicion,  a  costa  de  la  Sociedad  Americana  de  la 
Biblia,  conforme  a  la  segunda,  que  revista  y  corregida 
publico  su  mismo  traductor  el  ano  de  1797  en  Madrid. 
Jesus  respondio :  Escudrinad  las  Escrituras.  S.  Juan, 
cap.  v.,  ver.  39.  Nueva  York  :  Edicion  estereotipica  por 
A.  Chandler,  1824.  "El  Nuevo  Testamento,  traducido 
de  la  Vulgate  Latina  en  Espanol,  por  el  rmo.  P.  Felipe 
Scio  de  S.  Miguel,  de  los  escuelas  pias,  obispo  electo  de 
Segovia.  Nueva  edicion,  a  costa  de  la  Sociedad  Ameri- 
cana de  la  Biblia,  quen  la  ha  hecho  cotejar  con  la  que 
revista  y  corregida  publico  su  traductor  el  ano  de  1797, 
en  Madrid.  Nueva  York  ;  Edicion  estereotipica  por  A. 
Chandler,  1824. 


430  TJie  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

The  aforesaid  Society  also  published  without  notes  at 
New  York  in  1837  a  32mo  edition  of  Scio's  New  Testa- 
ment with  this  title  page  : — 

"  El  Nuevo  Testamento,  traducido  al  Espanol  por  el 
R.  P.  Felipe  Scio  de  S.  Miguel,  de  las  Escuelas  Pias, 
obispo  de  Segovia.  Nueva  York :  Edicion  estereotipica 
por  F.  F.  Ripley.  A  costa  de  la  Sociedad  Americana 
de  la  Biblia,  Formada  en  Nueva  York,  A.  D.  18 16. 
Imprinta  de  D.  Fanshaw.     1837." 

In  1838  the  same  Society  had  printed  without  notes 
in  New  York  a  32mo.  edition  of  De  Sacy's  New  Testa- 
ment with  the  following  title  page  : — 

"  Le  Nouveau  Testament  de  notre  Seigneur  Jesus 
Christ;  traduit  sur  la  Vulgate  par  le  Maistre  de  Sacy. 
New  York:  Stereotype  par  F.  F.  Ripley,  pour  la 
Societe  Biblique  Americaine,  etablie  en  MDCCCXVI. 
1838.     D.  F.  Fanshaw,  Imprimeur." 

A  Portuguese  i2mo  New  Testament,  without  notes, 
made  its  appearance  in  1839,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
aforesaid  Society.  It  was  an  edition  of  Antonio  Per- 
eira's  translation  of  the  Vulgate  printed  at  Lisbon  in 
1781-83,  and  had  the  following  title  page  :  — 

"  O  Novo  Testamento  de  Nosso  Senhor  Jesu  Christo, 
tradusido  em  Portuguez  segundo  o  Vulgata,  pelo  Padre 
Antonio  Pereira  de  Figueiredo,  Nova  York :  Edigao 
estereotipica  por  J.  S.  Redfield,  a  costa  da  Sociedade 
Americana  da  Biblia  formada  em  Nova  York,  A.  D. 
1816.     Impressa  per  D.  Fanshaw,  1839. 

The  publication  and  distribution  of  these  mutilated 
and  falsified  Cathohc  versions  of  the  Holy  Scripture  is 
such  an  infamous  business,  that  it  can  hardly  be  con- 
ceived how  intelligent  and  honorable  men  can  be  so  far 
deluded  as  to  furnish  funds  for  the  purpose,  though  one 
can  easil}'  understand  why  those  to  whom  it  is  a  source 
of  profit — publishers,  printers,  booksellers,  book-agents, 
etc.,  should  engage  in  it.     For  these  Bibles  and  Testa- 


The  Dona y  and  other  W-rsions  of  tJic  Vulgate  in  the  U.  S.  431 

ments,  stripped  of  their  notes  and  otherwise  mutilated 
as  they  generally  are,  are  simply  base  counterfeits  of 
originals  which  have  been  carefull}-  and  conscientiously 
prepared  for  those  who  believe  them  to  be  the  Word  of 
God,  and  who  consign  these  counterfeits  to  the  fate  that 
awaits  waste  paper,  the  moment  the}'  perceive  their  real 
character.  This  disreputable  business,  however,  was 
long  carried  on  in  the  same  disreputable  way  in 
Europe  as  in  the  United  States  ;  Italy,  France,  Spain, 
and  Poland  in  particular,  can  bear  testimony  to  the  dis- 
honest and  dishonorable  methods  of  those  engaged  in  it. 
Diodati's  Calvinistic  Italian  and  French  translations 
wei"e  everywhere  insolent!}'  thrust  upon  Catholics,  and 
when  these  false  versions  proved  to  be  an  obstacle  to 
the  schemes  of  the  propagandists,  these  worthies,  in 
order  to  convince  their  employers  that  there  was  still 
reason  to  hope  for  success,  undei"took  the  distribution  of 
Catholic  versions,  after  so  deftly  inoculating  them  with 
their  own  errors,  that  ordinary  readers  would  fail  to  de- 
tect the  despicable  fraud.  This  plan  was  worked  for  a 
while  in  Italy.  And  in  this  way  France  was  flooded 
with  counterfeits  of  De  Sacy's  version,  Spain  with  coun- 
terfeits of  Scio's,  and  Poland  with  counterfeits  of  Wiecki's. 
Probably  the  boldest,  most  fraudulent,  and  most  dis- 
graceful attempt  of  the  kind  was  perpetrated  some  years 
ago  in  New  York.  The  case  is  so  unique,  and  the  details 
so  curious  and  so  well  established,  as  to  deserve  a  sepa- 
rate paragraph. 

Year  1890,  in  the  county  where  these  remarks  are 
written,  a  priest  on  one  of  his  visits  to  a  Catholic  family 
had  his  attention  directed  to  a  quarto  Bible,  beautifully 
bound  and  highly  embellished  with  numerous  plates,  but 
was  told  it  was  a  counterfeit.  This  he  could  not  believe 
until  he  had  carefully  examined  the  book,  when  he  was 
convinced  that  it  was  a  Lutheran  Bible.  He  then  asked 
and  obtained  it  as  a  gift  from  the  gentleman  in  whose 


432  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

possession  it  was.  And,  of  course, —  burned  it?  Not  at 
all.  It  is  now  placed  beside  that  other  faithful  German 
version  prepaied  by  the  learned  Dr.  Joseph  Francis  Von 
AUioli,  and  will  probably  remain  there  as  a  standing- 
monument  of  the  unscrupulous  methods  resorted  to  for 
the  dissemination  of  the  Protestant  Scriptures.  The 
contents  of  its  title-page  are : — 

"  Die  Heilige  Schrift  des  Alten  und  Neuen  Testaments, 
Aus  der  Vulgata  uebersetzt  von  Dr.  Joseph  Franz  von 
Allioli.  llliistrirte  Handausgabe.  enthaltend  den  vom 
Apostolischen  Stuhle  approbirten  vollstandigen  Text 
und  eine  aus  den  Anmerkungen  des  grosseren  AUioli- 
sche«  Bibelwerkes  von  dem  Verfasser  selbstbesorgte  ab- 
gekiirzte  Erlauterung  jenes  Textes.  Mit  Appi-obation 
des  hochw.  bischofl.  Ordinariates  Augsburg  und  mit  Em- 
pfehlung  der  hochwLirdigsten  Ordinariate  von  Breslau, 
Olmiitz,  Wien,  Gran  und  Ofen,  Salzburg,  Freiburg, 
Brixen,  Paderborn. 

1 866. 

Druck  und  Verlag  von  Friedrich  Pustet  in  New- 
York,  6i  Liberty  Street,  nahe  Broadway." 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  title-page  is  the  following  : 

"  Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year 
1866  by  Fr.  Pustet  in  the  Clerk's  Ofifice  of  the  District 
Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Southern  District  of 
New  York." 

After  Malachias,  the  deutero  books  and  Addetida  of 
Esther  and  Daniel,  with  the  Prayer  of  Manasses,  are  thus 
introduced. 

"  Apocrvpha." 

Das  sind  Biicher,  so  der  heiligen  Schrift  nicht  gleich 
gehalten,  und  doch  nlitzlich  und  gut  zu  lesen  sind." 

The  book  was  submitted  to  the  well-known  Publish- 
ers from  whose  house  it  professes  to  have  issued,  and 
elicited  the  followinsr  answer: — 


The  Doiiay  and  other  I'ersions  of  the  I'nigate  in  t/ie  C.  S.  433 

"  The  title  of  the  Old  Testament  is  pasted  in — the 
paper  of  the  Old  Testament  is  different  from  the  paper 
of  title  page.  It  is  possible  that  the  man  who  imported 
the  Bible  got  an  order  for  a  Catholic  Bible  ;  then  he  or- 
dered from  us  the  first  number  (for  our  Bible  can  be  had 
in  24  numbers)  and  pasted  the  title  page  in  the  book.  .  .  . 
This  Bible  is  a  fraud  by  all  means."  How  many  such 
frauds  have  been  committed  in  the  name  of  religion,  is 
known  only  to  the  agents  themselves  and  to  Him  from 
Whom  nothing  is  concealed. 

In  the  United  States  there  have  been  also  several  un- 
successful attempts  made  at  different  times  by  Catholic 
pubhshers  to  bring  out  entire  or  partial  editions  of  the 
Scripture.  In  some  such  cases  the  publishers,  after  is- 
suing a  few  sheets,  abandoned  the  undertaking.  In 
others  the  undertaking,  after  having  been  announced, 
was  never  commenced.  Separate  books  of  the  Bible 
have  also  occasionally  been  published,  or  selected  as 
bases  of  commentaries  by  ecclesiastics,  but  without  epis- 
copal sanction.  Various  editions  of  the  Epistles  and  Gos- 
pels prescribed  for  Sundays  and  Festivals  throughout 
the  year  have,  besides,  been  issued  from  the  Catholic  press. 

The  publication  and  sale  of  Catholic  Bibles  in  the 
United  States  constitute  such  a  profitable  business,  that 
even  Protestant  publishers  have  been  tempted  to  env 
bark  in  it,  and  Cathohc  Old  or  New  Testaments,  or  both 
combined,  may  be  obtained  at  a  moderate  price  at  aU 
most  any  book  store,  especially  in  the  larger  cities 
throughout  the  country.  The  stock  on  hand  is  gener- 
ally renewed  by  the  reproduction  of  some  popular  do- 
mestic or  imported  edition  or  revision  of  the  Douay  and 
Rheims  version  of  the  Vulgate.  Thus  a  New  York 
house  proposes  to  issue  this  year  an  edition  of  Denver's 
Douay  Bible,  which  first  appeared  at  Belfast  in  1839, 
and  engages  t(i  sell  it  for  %  1.25  per  coi)y.  Another 
New    York    publisher   is    certain    that    from     1868    to 

'  1890. 


434  T^^^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testauicnt. 

1888  he  has  sold  138,250  of  Ha3^dock  and  Challoner 
Bibles,  and  believes  that,  were  he  to  add  25,000  more, 
he  woidd  not  be  unduly  exaggerating  the  amount  of 
his  sales.  Of  those  sales  41,000  were  Haydock's  Bibles, 
and  97,250  Challoner's,  that  is,  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment in  one  volume.  His  smallest  sales  were  in  1868, 
when  they  numbered  1000  ;  his  largest  sales  being  in 
1885,  when  they  amounted  to  14,000. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


What  the  Church  has  done  for  the  dissemination 
OF  THE  Scriptures  in  the   English  language 

SINCE  the  invention  OF  THE  PRINTING  PRESS,  SHE 
has  also  DONE  DURING  THE  SAME  PERIOD  FOR  THEIR 
DISSEMINATION   IN  ALL   OTHER   LANGUAGES   SPOKEN 

BY  Christian  nations. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  any  of  the  editions  of 
the  Anglo-Catholic  Bible  already  enumerated,  or,  in- 
deed, any  version  of  the  Sacred  Scripture  into  any  mod- 
ern language,  has  ever  received  the  supreme  sanction  of 
the  Church.  That  honor  is  reserved  exclusively  for  one 
translation — the  Latin  Vulgate.  The  most  that  any 
other  Bible  can  expect  is  simply  tacit  recognition  on  the 
part  of  the  Church ;  and  those  concerned  in  its  publi- 
cation have  reason  to  be  grateful  when  the  Chief  Pastor, 
or  one  of  his  officials  in  his  name,  extends,  as  is  some- 
times the  case,  a  word  of  blessing  or  commendation  of 
the  labors  in  which  they  are  engaged.  Yet  the  Popes 
have  at  all  times  encouraged  any  honest  effort  to  dissem- 
inate the  Scriptures  entire  and  uncorrupt  in  the  vernac- 
ular of  every  country.  This  is  proved  by  the  approba- 
tion which  bishops  everywhere,  with  the  knowledge 
and  consent  of  the  Pope,  give  to  translations  intended 
for  the  use  of  the  laity.  In  fact,  the  language  used  by 
some  of  the  Popes  on  this  subject  has  been  so  direct  and 
emphatic,  that  none  but  those  outside  the  pale  of  reason 
would  assert  the  contrai-y.  Thus,  when  the  Most  Rev. 
Anthony  Martini,  Archbishop  of  Florence,  translated  the 

435 


436  The  Canon  of  the  0/d  Tcsianunt. 

Scriptures  intd  Italian,  Pius  VI.,  who  was  then  Pope,  in  a 
well-known  letter  dated  Rome,  April  i,  1778,  addressed 
him  in  these  words:  "  You  judge  exceedingly  well,  that 
the  faithful  should  be  excited  to  the  reading  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures ;  for  these  are  the  most  abundant  sources, 
which  ought  to  be  left  open  to  every  one,  to  draw  from  them 
purity  of  morals  and  doctrine,  to  eradicate  the  errors 
which  ai-e  widely  disseminated  in  these  corrupt  times. 
This  you  have  seasonably  effected,  as  you  declare,  hy 
publishing  the  sacred  writings  in  the  language  of  your 
country,  suitable  to  every  one's  capacity^  Brian  Walton, 
Anglican  bishop  of  Chester,  in  the  preface  to  his  Polyglot 
Bible,  has  inserted  a  document  which  establishes  the 
same  point.  It  is  a  letter  addressed  to  the  King  of  Spain 
by  Gregory  XIII.,  who  was  Pope  from  1572  to  1585. 
"  The  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  Scriptures  (says 
the  Pontiff)  are  vere  great  ;  for  ^s  regards  theolog}', 
which  is  the  highest  philosophy,  all  the  mysteries  of  our 
holy  religion,  and  of  the  divinity,  are  unfolded  in  these 
books  ;  and  as  regards  the  parts  which  are  styled  moral, 
all  precepts  directed  to  all  virtues  are  gathered  from  it : 
in  which  two  branches  the  whole  sum  of  our  salvation 
and  happiness  is  contained,  so  that  nothing  can  be  more 
becoming  than  the  reading  of  these  books,  nothing  more 
advantageous,  nothing  better  suited  to  every  class,  nothing 
more  replete  with  wisdom  and  learning." 

Yet,  with  the  exception  of  the  Vulgate,  neither  the 
Church  nor  her  chief  Pastor,  speaking  as  her  infallible 
mouthpiece,  has  ever  sanctioned  any  copy  or  version  of 
the  Bible,  no  matter  by  whom  made.  Individual  bish- 
ops may  and  do  approve  of  particular  versions  or  edi- 
tions. But  nobody  besides  themselves  is  responsible 
for  the  approbation  thus  given,  or  the  use  which  they 
allow  translators  and  publishers  to  make  of  it.  There 
have  been  generally  very  few  occasions  on  which  such 
privilege  has  been  abused.     Yet  the  occurrence  of  typo- 


CatJiolic  Printed  Bibles  in  Foreign  Languages.       437 

j^raphical  errors,  objectionable  notes,  and  even  changes 
in  the  text,  arising  from  want  of  due  care  on  the  part 
of  editors  and  publishers  in  one  or  two  instances,  ' 
show  that  episcopal  sanction  cannot  alwa3-s  prevent 
even  serious  defects.  In  the  first  Provincial  Council  of 
Baltimore,  1829,  a  decree  was  framed  for  retaining  the 
Douay  version,  as  one  that  had  been  approved  by  the 
Holy  See.  The  Sacred  Congregation  of  the  Propa- 
ganda, however,  directed  that  the  part  of  the  decree 
implying  that  the  Douay  version  had  ever  been  approved 
by  the  Holy  See  should  be  expunged,  as  a  most  diligent 
investigation  had  failed  to  discover  any  record  of  such 
approval. '"  "The  decree  itself,  as  resting  on  the  constant 
usage  of  the  churches  in  which  the  English  language 
prevails,  was  sanctioned,  with  the  addition  made  by  the 
prelates,  that  a  most  accurate  edition  should  be  pub- 
lished." ^  This  action  of  the  Sacred  Congregation 
shows  that,  while  the  Church  declines  to  approve  any 
version  besides  the  Vulgate,  she  is  ready  to  encourage 
any  enterprise  that  proposes  to  provide  the  laity  with 
faithful  translations  in  languages  which  they  understand. 
But  her  policy  of  withholding  her  formal  sanction  from 
such  translations  is  sufificientl}'  justified  by  the  difficul- 
ty of  clothing  with  another  form  of  speech  the  true 
sense  of  what  is  contained  in  that  Bible,  which  she  has 
adopted  as  a  standard  of  written  revelation  ;  as  well  as 
b}'  the  constant  changes  from  which  no  living  language 
is  exempt.  Hence  the  Sacred  Congregation  in  its  "  In 
struction  "  regarding  the  decrees  passed  at  the  Second 
Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore  in  1866,  while  recommend- 
ing a  revision  of  the  Douay  Bible,  and  suggesting  the 
measures  to  be  adopted  for  that  purpose,  is  careful  to 

'   Vide  Kenrick's  General  hitrodtiction  to  N.   Test.,  p.  vi. 
'^  Cone.  Frov.  Bait.  I.,  60,  61. 

3  Kenrick's    General  Introd.  to  Psalms,   B.  of  iVisd.,   Cant,  of  Cant.,  pp. 
ix.,  X. 


438  TJic  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Tcstanioit. 

observe  that  the  Holy  See  is  averse  to  confirming  ver- 
sions of  the  kind  with  its  approbation.  ' 

Yet,  ever  since  the  invention  of  the  printing  press, 
which  preceded  the  birth  of  Luther  b}'  ahnost  half  a 
century,  the  Church,  through  her  hierarchy,  has  to  the 
utmost  availed  herself  of  that  means  for  supplying  ever}-^ 
Christian  country  wdth  the  Scriptures  in  its  own  lan- 
guage. But  in  relation  to  this  point,  our  list  of  facts 
must  be  condensed,  and  our  remarks  be  necessarily 
brief,  in  view  of  the  amount  of  space  just  devoted  to 
that  part  of  the  general  subject  which  refers  to  what  is 
of  most  importance  to  our  readers — the  circulation  of 
the  Bible  in  the  English  language. 

To  begin  with  Germany. — There  was  printed  in  1466 
a  German  translation  of  the  Latin  Vulgate.  Two  copies 
of  this  translation  are  extant.  It  was  republished  with 
improvements  at  least  sixteen  times  before  the  appear- 
ance of  Luther's,  in  1534.  In  that  year  another  version  of 
the  Vulgate  in  German  w^as  published  by  John  Dietem- 
berger,  at  Metz,  under  the  auspices  of  Albert,  Archbishop 
and  Elector  of  that  city.  Within  a  hundred  years  after 
it  was  printed,  it  was  republished  upwards  of  twenty 
times.  The  vear  1537  witnessed  the  appearance  of  the 
third  German  Catholic  translation,  by  Emser  and  Eck, 
the  two  distinguished  divines  who  had  triumphantly 
championed  the  cause  of  truth  against  the  errors  of 
Luther.  It  was  reprinted  several  times,  and  was  followed 
in  the  year  1630  b}'  another,  from  the  pen  of  Gaspar 
Ulenberg,  dedicated  to  Ferdinand,  Archbishop  and 
Elector  of  Cologne.  Since  then  Catholic  Germany  has 
repeatedly  availed  itself  of  the  printing  press  for  the 
purpose  of  disseminating  the  Sacred  Scriptures  among 
the  people.  In  the  present  century  several  German 
Catholic  Bibles,  deserving  of  special  mention,  have  been 
published,  as  Schwarzel's,  Brentano's,  Allioli's,  etc. 

'   Cone.  PUn.  Bait.  II.,  p.  cxxxviii. 


Catholic  Printed  Bibles  in  Foreign  Langnd^es.       4^9 

France  also,  since  the  printing  press  had  so  greatly 
facilitated  the  publication  of  books,  has  been  frequently 
favored  with  Catholic  translations  of  the  Bible  in  its 
own  language.  In  1478,  according  to  Usher,  Guiars 
Des  Moulin's  "  Bible  Histor3ale  "  an  almost  complete 
French  translation,  appeared.  A  new  edition  of  it,  cor- 
rected and  enlarged  by  John  de  Rely,  subsequently 
Bishop  of  Angers,  was  pubHshed  in  1487,  and  republished 
several  times  afterward.  In  15 12  Le  Fevre  completed 
another  French  Catholic  version,  which  passed  through 
many  editions.  A  revision  of  it  by  the  divines  of  Lou- 
vain  was  printed  in  1550,  and  was  afterwards  reprinted 
thirty-nine  times  before  the  year  1700.  Yet  these  were 
not  the  only  revisions  made  for  the  use  of  French  Cath- 
olics ;  for,  were  we  to  continue  the  list,  we  should  have 
to  name  several  others,  as  De  Sacy's,  Corbin's,  Amel- 
lote's,  Maralles',  Godeau's,  Hure's,  etc. 

Italf,  at  an  early  period,  took  advantage  of  the  facihties 
presented  by  the  printing  press  for  providing  her  people 
with  the  Word  of  God  in  their  own  language.  For,  the 
translation  of  Nicholas  Malerni,  a  Camaldolese  monk, 
was  printed  both  at  Rome  and  Venice  in  147 1,  just 
twelve  years  before  Luther  saw  the  light,  and  sixty- 
three  before  he  translated  the  Bible  into  German. 
Malerni's  version  was  from  the  Vulgate,  and  before 
1525  passed  through  as  many  as  thirteen  editions,  all  of 
which  were  issued  ?vit/i  tJie  leave  of  the  Inquisition.  It 
was  followed  in  1532  by  Bruccioli's  Italian  Bible,  which 
was  a  translation  of  the  Latin  version  made  in  1528  by 
Sanctes  Pagninus  from  the  Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  Greek  of  the  New.  Bruccioli's  translation 
was  revised  by  Santes  Marmochini,  and  having  thus 
become  practically  a  new  version,  it  was  published  in 
1538,  and  again  in  1546,  and  a  third  time  in  1547.  Of 
all  these  Italian  translations  the  most  accurate  is  one 
already  mentioned  in  a  preceding  page,  that  made  with 


440  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

the  commendation  of  Pope  Pius  VI.  by  Anthony  Mar- 
tini, Archbishop  of  Florence.  The  Old  Testament  of 
this  version  was  published  in  1769,  and  the  New  in  1779. 
Both  have  been  repeatedly  published  since. 

Spain,  like  every  other  Catholic  country,  lost  no  time 
in  turning  to  account  the  means  presented  by  the  print- 
ing press  for  a  cheap  and  rapid  distribution  of  the 
Scriptures  among  her  people  in  their  own  vernacular. 
A  version  of  the  whole  Bible  already  made  in  the 
Valencian  dialect  by  Boniface,  brother  of  St.  Vincent 
Ferrer,  or,  as  some  suppose,  by  the  Saint  himself,  was 
therefore  printed  at  Valencia  in  1 578,  ivith  tJie  formal  sanc- 
tion of  tJic  Inquisition.  It  seems  to  have  been  reprinted 
about  15 1 5.  A  volume  containing  a  translation  of  the 
Epistles  and  Gospels,  by  Ambrosio  de  Montesina,  ap- 
peared in  1 5 12,  and  was  republished  at  Antwerp  in  1544, 
at  Barcelona  in  1601  and  1608,  and  at  Madrid  in  1603 
and  161 5.  Subsequently,  translations  of  the  Proverbs, 
Psalms,  and  other  books  were  printed.  And  in  1794 
Don  Felipe  Scio  de  San  Miguel,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Segovia,  printed  at  Madrid  a  translation  of  the  Vulgate, 
enriching  it  with  copious  notes.  In  1823,  another  ver- 
sion, prepared  by  F.  T.  Amat,  and  accompanied  by  a 
commentar)',  was  published  at  Madrid. 

Portugal  was  provided  with  a  Catholic  Bible  in  its 
own  language  late  in  the  last  century.  It  was  the  work 
of  Antonio  Pereira  de  Figueiredo,  and  was  printed  at 
Lisbon,  1784.  Long  before  that,  however,  the  Script- 
ures, as  we  shall  see,  had  been  translated  into  Portu- 
guese. 

Flanders,  at  the  time  Guttenberg's  great  invention 
became  known,  had  an  old  Flemish  translation  of  the 
Bible  in  manuscript,  made,  according  to  Usher,  before 
the  year  1210  bv  "one  named  Jacobus  Merland."  Of 
that  manuscri])t  some  copies  still  survive.  It  was 
printed  at  Cologne  in  1475,  and  passed  through  several 


Catholic  Printed  Ihblcs  in  Foreign  Languages.       441 

editions  before  Luther's  translation  appeared.  Two 
distinct  editions  of  it  were  published  at  Delft  in  1477,  '^ 
third  at  Goude  in  1479,  '^"d  f*^'^'^"  others  at  Antwerp  in 
1515.  iS-St  '526,  1528.  The  last  of  these  editions,  the 
most  correct  of  all,  was  reprinted  eight  times  in  the 
space  of  seventeen  years,  and  was  published  at  Lou  vain 
in  1548,  with  improvements  by  Nicholas  Von  Wingh. 
The  New  Testament,  translated  by  Cornelius  Hendricks, 
was  published  separately  at  Delft,  in  1524.  At  least  ten 
editions  of  it  seem  to  have  been  brought  out  within 
thirty  years  at  Antwerp  alone.  In  the  following  cen- 
tury several  new  versions  of  the  entire  Bible  appeared 
in  Flemish,  as  those  of  De  Witt,  Laemput,  Schurr,  etc. 
To  these  should  be  added  one  almost  completed  by 
William  Smetz  and  .Peter  Van  Howe,  O.S.F.,  a  New 
Testament  left  unfinished  by  S.  Lipman,  and  another 
part  of  the  entire  Bible,  being  the  poetical  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  together  with  the  New,  a  work  approved 
by  the  Belgian  Bishops,  and  undertaken  by  Theodore 
Beelen,  Professor  of  Louvain,  whom  death  prevented 
from  accomplishing  his  task. 

Poland  had  a  version  prepared  for  the  use  of  its  peo- 
ple by  James  Wujek,  S.  J.,  who  translated  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  from  the  Vulgate  into  Polish.  It  was 
printed  at  Warsaw  in  1599,  ^  '^t  the  expense  of  Stanislaus 
Karnkowski,  Primate  of  Poland  and  Archbishop  of 
Gnesen,  but  seems  to  have  been  printed  for  the  first  time 
at  Craco\v  in  1561,  and  again  in  1577,  and  finally  in  1619, 
and  always  zvith  tJic  approbation  of  the  reigning  Pontiffs. 

BoJieniia.  In  1488  a  Bohemian  version  of  the  entire 
Bible  was  published  at  Prague.  It  was  afterwards 
published  at  Cutna  in  1498,  and  at  Venice  in  1506  and 
1511. 

Slavonia.      A    vSlavonic    versi(jn,  comprising  a  great 

'  A  copy  of  this  edition  has  been  found  among  the  Poles  in  the  United 
States. 


44-  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

portion  of  the  Bible,  was  printed  at  Cracow  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  centur}. 

Hungary.  In  1533,  a  Hungarian  version  of  St.  Paul's 
Epistles  by  B.  Komjathy  was  published  at  Cracow.  In 
1536,  a  Hungarian  version  of  the  four  Gospels  by  Ga- 
briel Ponnonius  Pothinus  was  printed  at  Posen.  In 
1 541,  the  entire  New  Testament  in  the  Hungarian  lan- 
guage by  John  Silvester  issued  from  the  press  at 
Ujszigethini.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury Stephen  Arator,  S.J.,  having  collated  the  Hebrew, 
Greek,  and  Latin  texts,  is  reported  to  have  written  a 
Hungarian  translation  of  the  entire  Bible,  but  it  was 
never  printed.  Another  version,  which  was  received 
with  great  favor  by  the  Catholics  of  "Hungary,  was  ex- 
ecuted by  George  Kaldi,  S.J.,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  printed  at  Vienna  in  1626. 
Several  editions  of  this  version  have  since  appeared, 
some  as  late  as  1862,  if  not  later.  The  version  was 
made  from  the  Latin  Vulgate. 

To  the  foregoing  list  should  be  added,  as  they  indi- 
cate the  sincere  purpose  of  the  Church  to  secure  the 
widest  possible  circulation  of  the  Scriptures  in  the 
East  as  well  as  the  West,  several  editions  of  the  Bible, 
translated  into  Syriac  and  Arabic  as  well  as  some  of 
the  dialects  of  Egypt,  and  printed  at  Rome,  Venice,  and 
Vienna  for  the  use  of  the  Oriental  Christians ;  and  an 
Ethiopic  version  of  the  Bible  published  at  Rome  in 
1848,  together  with  many  excellent  editions  of  the  Ar- 
menian Bible,  issued  from  the  press  of  the  Armenian 
Monks  at  San  Lazaro,  one  of  the  Venetian  islands.' 

The  same  efforts  which  we  have  seen  the  Church  put 

forth  during  the  last  four  centuries  to  place  the  Sacred 

« 

1  On  the  subject  ot  printed  versions  other  than  English,  the  principal  works 
consulted  have  been  Le  Long's  Bibliotheca  Sacra;  Kitio' s  C}'c/o/>e(/ta  ("Ver- 
sions); Dublin  Revieiv,v6i.  I.;  Dixon's /;//;%/. .  vol.  I.;  Cornely  s  Introd., 
vol.  I.;  and  Danko's  Introd.,    vol.  I. 


Calliolic  Printed  BibLs  i?i  Foreign  Languages.        443 

Scriptures  within  reach  of  all  in  the  Old  World, 'were 
witnessed  in  the  New,  as  soon  as  it  was  opened  to  the 
zeal  of  her  missionaries.  Even  Protestant  writers  bear 
testimony  to  this  fact.  Thus  Thomas  Hartwell  Home, 
D.D.,  an  English  divine,  who  died  in  1862,  and  grudg- 
ingly recognizes  any  good  feature  in  the  policy  of  the 
Church,  admits,  '  that  Benedict  Fernandez,  a  Domini- 
can friar  and  vicar  of  Mixteca,  in  New  Spain,  trans- 
lated the  Epistles  and  Gospels  into  the  Indian  language 
spoken  in  that  province  ;  that  Didacus  de  S.  Maria,  an- 
other Dominican  friar,  and  vicar  of  the  province  of 
Mexico,  who  died  in  1579,  also  translated  the  same  por- 
tions of  the  New  Testament  into  the  Mexican  tongue 
or  general  language  of  the  country  ;  that  Louis  Rodri- 
guez, a  Franciscan  friar,  translated  into  the  same  lan- 
guage the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  and  other  fragments 
of  Scripture  ;  and  that  Arnoldo  Basacio,  also  a  Francis- 
can friar,  translated  into  the  idiom  of  the  Western 
Indians  the  Epistles  and  Gospels  appointed  to  be  read 
for  the  whole  year.  Undoubtedly  the  writer,  who  has 
called  the  attention  of  English  Protestant  readers  to 
these  facts,  would  have  had  far  more  to  say  to  the 
credit  of  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  Fathers,  as 
well  as  other  Catholic  missionaries  who  labored  in  the 
same  field,  had  it  not  been  that  their  efforts  in  rendering 
the  Sacred  Scriptures  accessible  to  the  Indians  were 
in  many  instances  thwarted  by  the  civil  authorities,  and 
seriously  impeded  by  the  difficulties  arising  from  the 
great  variet}'  of  idioms  among  the  native  tribes  of  the 
New  World.  For  the  spirit  by  which  the  missionaries 
were  actuated  was  that  which  had  all  along  preserved 
the  Scriptures  entire,  and  had  already  pro))agated  them 
throughout  every  part  of  the  civilized  world  in  languages 
which  rendered  them,  in  a  manner,  intelligible  to  any 
one  w^ho  was  able  to  read. 

'  Appendix  to  Introd.,  vol.  II.,  p.  I20. 


444  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

It  is  therefore  evident  that,  since  the  printing  press 
was  invented,  or  at  least  since  it  was  improved  to  such 
a  degree  as  to  render  the  publication  of  books  a  speedy, 
exact,  and  inexpensive  operation  as  compared  with  the 
old  method  emplo3'ed  for  the  same  purpose,  the  Church 
has  done  all  that  it  was  possible  for  her  to  do  in  supply- 
ing the  laity  with  the  word  of  God,  by  means  of  ver- 
sions in  the  different  languages  spoken  throughout  the 
Christian  world.  And  for  the  first  five  centuries  after 
she  commenced  her  divine  mission,  as  a  consequence  of 
her  approval,  her  blessing,  and  even  her  instructions, 
the  Greek  and  Latin  versions  of  the  Bible,  after  having 
been  diiigently  corrected,  had  been  copied  again  and 
again  by  innumerable  hands.  In  fact,  from  age  to  age 
many  of  the  secular  clergy,  and  great  numbers  of  those 
who,  under  a  rule  approved  by  the  Church,  sought  in 
her  monasteries  a  safe  retreat  from  the  dangers  of  the 
world,  consecrated  their  lives  to  the  labor  of  illuminat- 
ing, expounding,  or  transcribing  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 
And  it  is  to  the  patient  industry  of  these  devoted  men 
("  laz}'^  monks,"  you  know)  '  that  the  present  generation 
is  indebted  for  most  if  not  all  of  those  early  manuscript 
copies  of  the  Bible,  which  still  withstand  the  wear  and 
tear  incidental  to  all  the  works  of  man.  Thus  it  could 
not  be  a  difficult  matter  for  any  one  living  within  the 
Roman  Empire,  when  Latin  and  Greek  were  ver)'  gen- 
erally understood,  to  procure  such  a  copy  of  the  Script- 
ures as  he.  if  educated,  could  understand  ;  while  in  those 
countries  where  a  different  language  was  spoken,  as  Syria, 
Egypt,  Ethiopia,  Arabia,  Armenia,  Persia,  Slavonia,  etc., 
versions  of  the  Septuagint  or  Vulgate  were  (it  is  well 

'  Such  of  our  separated  brethren  as  know  not  the  profound  ignorance  and 
absolute  inertia  that  prevailed  long  ago  among  the  inmates  of  monastic  institu- 
tions had  better  read  what  has  been  written  in  1845,  "  On  the  Dark  Ages,  by- 
Rev.  S.  R.  Maitland,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  and  F.S.A.,  Librarian  to  his  Grace,  the 
■CProtestant)  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,"  England. 


Catholic  Printed  Bibles  in  Forcijrn  Languages.      445 

known)  under  the  benign  influence  of  the  Church  made 
for  the  use  of  the  inhabitants,  ahnost  as  soon  as  they  be- 
came Christians.  But  as,  with  the  irruptions  of  the  Bar- 
barians into  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  and  following 
centuries,  all  institutions  of  learning  were  crushed  under 
the  merciless  tread  of  those  rude  invaders,  half  pagan, 
half  Christian,  Western  Christendom,  which  they  prin- 
cipally ravaged  and  afterwards  occupied,  might,  when 
compared  with  its  present  condition,  be  regarded  as 
more  or  less  uncivilized  and  uneducated  until  probably 
the  fourteenth  century,  when  through  the  agencies 
employed  by  the  Church  order  was  brought  out  of 
chaos,  human  society  at  last  reconstructed  on  an  endur- 
ing basis,  and  the  language  of  each  people  adapted  to 
the  creation  of  a  national  literature.  Until  that  stage 
of  progress  had  been  reached,  it  was  neither  necessary 
nor  possible  for  the  Church  to  adopt  such  measures  as 
would  place  in  the  hands  of  every  one  a  copy  of  the 
Scriptures  which  he  could  understand;  though  it  is 
certain,  as  we  shall  see,  that  even  then  all  classes  or 
Christians  had  it  in  their  power  to  become  familiar 
with,  at  least,  the  leading  doctrinal  and  moral  principles 
contained  in  the  Scriptures. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 


Before  the  Invention  of  the  Printing  Press,  va- 
rious CAUSES  contributed  TO  RESTRICT  THE  CIR- 
CULATION OF  THE  Bible.  Its  Existence  and  its 
Contents,  however,  through  the  influence  of 
THE  Church,  were  so  familiar  to  all,  that  at 

NO  TIME  could  IT  BE  CALLED  AN  UNKNOWN  BOOK. 

First,  then,  it  was  not  necessary  for  the  Church  to 
provide  every  one  with  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures.  For, 
in  order  that  such  a  copy  should  have  been  of  any  use 
to  its  possessor,  he  must  have  been  able  to  read.  Now, 
for  several  centuries  after  the  invasion  and  occupancy 
of  the  Western  Empire  by  the  barbarians,  illiteracy  was 
so  general  there,  that,  if  we  exclude  the  clerg}',  we  shall 
find  few  even  among  the  upper  and  wealthier  classes  of 
society  who  could  read.  Education  as  now  understood 
seems  to  have  been  the  exception,  not  the  rule,  during 
that  time,  so  that  it  is  certain  that  persons  who  could  not 
understand  a  book  written  in  their  own  language  were 
to  be  met  with  in  the  ranks  of  the  nobility,  and  among 
the  highest  officials  of  the  State.  The  Emperor  Charle- 
magne, who  died  in  the  ninth  century,  though  a  munili- 
cent  patron  of  letters,  "  according  to  a  very  plain  testi- 
mony, was  incapable  of  writing."  '  Yet  when,  somewhat 
earlier,  the  gloom  was  thickest,  according  to  the  author- 
ity just  cited,  Ireland  "both  drew  students  from  the 
Continent,  and  sent  forth  men  of  comparative  eminence 

'   Hallam,  The  MUdh-  Ages,  ch.  ix.,  pnrt  i.,  p.  480. 

446 


The  Bible  before  the  Printing  Press.  447 

into  its  schools  and  churciies."  '  The  Continent  must 
indeed  have  stood  in  need  of  educators,  when  Heribaud, 
Comte  Du  Palais  under  Lewis  II.,  in  823  signed  a  charter 
thus  :  "  The  sign  of  me,  Herbaud,  Count  of  the  Sacred 
Palace,  who  was  there,  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
because  I  was  ignorant  of  letters."  '  Even  several  cen- 
turies later  prominent  personages  are  met  with  equally 
destitute  of  education.  Bertrand  du  Guesclin,  who 
lived  in  the  fourteenth  centur}',  though  Constable  of 
France,  and,  as  his  biographer  says,  "  the  greatest  sol- 
dier of  his  age,"  according  to  the  same  authoritv.  "like 
all  the  nobles  of  that  time,  never  knew  how  to  read  or 
wiite."  ^  Two  hundred  years  afterwards  another  Con- 
stable of  France,  Anne  de  Montmorency,  the  undisput- 
ed head  of  the  French  nobility,  was  not  possessed  of 
greater  literary  attainments  than  had  fallen  to  the  lot 
of  Bertrand. '  Even  more  exalted  dignitaries  were  not 
better  educated  than  these  two  noblemen.  Frederic 
Barbarossa,  Emperor  of  Germany  in  the  twelfth  century, 
could  not  read,  nor  Philip  the  Hard}',  King  of  France 
in  the  following  century,  nor  John,  King  of  Bohemia  in 
the  fourteenth  century, '  when  Louis  of  Bavaria,  Emper- 
or of  Germany,  stood  forth  a  worthy  successor  of  Bar- 
barossa in  ferocity  and  illiteracy.  ^  "  Before  the  end  ot 
the  eleventh  century,  and  especially  after  the  ninth,  it 
was  rare,"  says  Hallam,  "  to  find  laymen  in  France  who 
could  read  and  write.  The  case  was  probably  not 
better  anywhere  else  except  in  Italy."  '  This  sweeping 
charge  of  ignorance  must,  of  course,  include  England. 
For  VVithred,  King  of  Kent,  who  reigned  from  671  to 
725,  made  use  of  this  formula  in  attaching  his  signature 

'  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  I.,  part  i.,  ch.  i.,  p.  29. 

2  Maitland,  The  Dark  Ages.  p.  11.  ^  Dublin  Review,  vol.  III.,  429. 

••  Ibid.  ^  Ilallam,  The  Middle  Ages,  c.  ix.,  Part  i,  p.  479,  n.  3. 

6  Rohrbacher,  Hist.  De  L'Eglise,  Tom.  XX.,  p.  270. 

1  Hallam,  Literature  of  Europe,  Part,  i.,  c.  p.  71. 


448  The  Camvi  of  the  Old  Testavie)it. 

to  one  of  his  charte?-s :  "  1  Withred,  King  of  Kent,  have 
confirmed  all  of  the  foregoing,  to  which,  after  having 
been  dictated  by  me,  1  have,  because  ignorant  of  letters, 
attached  the  sign  of  the  holy  Cross  with  my  own  hand."  ' 
That  the  number  of  Withred's  subjects  or  countrymen 
who  were  better  educated  than  himself  was  for  a  long 
time  comparatively  small,  is  proved  by  the  exemption 
from  punishment,  or  arrest  of  judgment  after  conviction, 
granted  to  criminals  capable  of  reading,  an  act  calculated 
to  encourage  learning  and  not  formally  repealed  till 
1706.^  In  fact,  Englishmen  holding  positions  of  honor 
and  trust,  as  appears  from  the  public  records,  were 
designated  uiarksDieii  in  a  sense  no  longer  attached  to 
the  word.  Worcester  and  Webster  agi'ee  in  saying 
that,  besides  the  ordinary  meaning,  which  7iiarksiHan 
now  conveys,  it  also  indicated  a  person  "  who,  not 
being  able  to  write,  marks  his  name "  with  a  cross 
as  a  substitute  for  his  written  signature.  The  orig- 
inal "  solemn  League  and  Covenant "  subscribed  in 
1637,  and  preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  exhibits 
quite  an  array  of  viarksnien,  all  of  whom,  from  their 
horror  of  Popery,  left  the  cross  unfinished,  signing  their 
name  with  a  T  instead  of  a  f. '  Shakespeare's  father, 
though  chief  alderman  of  Stratford,  like  man}^  others 
even  of  higher  rank  than  his  at  the  time,  could  not  write 
his  own  name  ; '  nor  could  the  trustees  of  his  marriage 
contract  with  Anne  Hathway,  in  1582,  though  otherwise 
most  respectable  people.  '  Hallam, "  summing  up  his 
conclusions  regarding  the  illiterac}'  that  prevailed  in 
Europe  "  for  many  centuries,"  declares  that  "  it  was  rare 
for  a  layman  of  whatever  rank  to  know  how  to  sign  his 
name."     It  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  certain  that 

'   Maitland's  Dark  Ages,  p.  ii.  "  Blackstone,  book  iv.,  ch.  28. 

^  Dublin  Review,  vol.  III.,  p.  430.  ■*  Am.  Ettcyl. 

s  Dub.  Revierv,  III.,  430. 

6   The  Middle  Ages,  ch,  i.\.,  part  i.,  p.  479. 


The  Bible  before  the  Printing  Press.  449 

for  a  \o\v^  period  after  the  disniptioii  of  the  Western 
Empire,  the  various  races  which  established  their 
homes  on  its  ruins  were  generally  uneducated,  as  the 
word  is  now  understood,  though  in  point  of  morality 
they  were  fully  equal  if  not  superior  to  their  {)resent 
descendants,  and,  while  in  general  intelligence  inferior 
to  them,  not  b}'  any  means  ranking  beneath  them  in  the 
possession  of  essential  knowledge.  Even  Mr.  Maitland, 
an  Anglican  minister,  and  a  writer  well  qualified  by  his 
studies  to  speak  on  the  subject,  honestly  confesses  that 
he  "  cannot  tell  why,  in  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom 
of  God,  and  on  which  man  can  be  enlightened  onlv  by 
the  Word  and  Spirit  of  God,  they  might  not  be  as  truly 
and  even  as  full}-  enlightened  as  any  of  mankind  before 
or  after  their  time."  '  But,  unable  as  most  of  them  were 
to  read,  the  translation  of  the  Bible  into  their  own 
language  or  jargon  could  have  been  of  no  use  whatever 
to  the  Christians  of  those  times,  and  therefore  any 
eff(^i"t  of  tlic  Church  in  that  direction  was  in  no  sense 
necessarv.  Yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  she  left 
them  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  Bible,  or  of  its  sacred 
contents,  for  they  were  never  present  at  divine  worship 
without  having  portions  of  it  read  by  the  officiating 
priest,  who,  besides,  was  bound  by  canonical  law  to  in- 
terpret and  explain  to  them  at  least  the  Epistles  and 
Gospels,  on  such  occasions  as  they  w^ere  accustomed  to 
assemble  together  at  church. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  had  the  laity  been  able  to 
read,  it  was  not  possible  to  provide  them  with  the 
Scriptures  on  account  of  the  fabulous  prices  which 
books  at  the  time  commanded.  The  reproduction  of 
an  original  work,  by  the  tedious  process  of  copying  then 
in  use,  involved  so  much  labor  and  expense,  that  even 
moderate  libraries,  if  possessed  at  all  outside  of  relig- 
ious establishments,   were  only  to  be  found  among  the 

'    The  Dark  A^es,  p.  ;^'^,  note. 


45(J  Tlie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

educated  and  wealthy.  Bo(^ks  were  exceedingly'  scarce, 
because,  except  among  the  clergy,  they  found  few 
readers,  and  because  those  few  readers  generall}-  found 
that  books  could  be  procured  onl}'  at  a  cost  far  beyond 
their  means.  What  that  cost  was,  it  is  impossible  to  de- 
termine exactly.  But  in  a  particular  case  it  must  have 
been  regulated  by  the  necessities  of  the  seller,  the 
eagerness  of  the  purchaser,  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
book  itself,  the  material  on  which  it  was  written,  the 
style  of  its  binding,  its  chirography,  its  fidelity,  actual 
condition,  etc.  The  most  that  can  be  said  on  the  point 
is  that,  while  writers  who  have  carefully  examined  it 
differ  very  widely  in  their  estimates,  they  all  agree  in 
saying  that  the  price  of  books  before  the  printing  press 
superseded  the  transcriber  was  much,  even  far,  greater 
than  it  was  afterwards.  The  following  extracts  from  the 
Dublin  Review  will,  however,  give  the  reader  a  more 
correct  idea  of  the  prices  at  which  books  were  sold  be- 
fore the  introduction  of  the  printing  press  than  he  could 
form  from  the  preceding  vague  statements.  "  Ames, 
/;/  his  History  of  the  English  Press  (Lond.,  1749,  4to),  says 
*  I  have  a  folio  manuscript  in  French,  called  Roman  de 
la  Rose,  on  the  last  leaf  of  which  is  wrote  Cest  ly  ver  cos- 
ta  au  Palais  de  Paris  quarante  couronnes  d'or  sans  men- 
tyr''  {Dibdins  Typogr.  Antiq.,  \o\.  I.,  p.  11).  This  sum 
is  valued  by  Ames  at  £  33,  6  s.,  8d.  ;  but  it  is  consider- 
ably more.  M.  Petit  Radel,  {Recherches  snr  les  Biblio- 
thcques,  Paris,  18 19,  8vo.)  writes:  '  Au  treizieme  siecle,  le 
prix  moyen  des  livres.,  non  surcharges  d'ornements,  etait 
de  quatre  a  cinque  cents  francs  d'aujourd'hui.'  The 
common  price  of  a  missal  was  five  mal'ks,  equal  to  the 
yearly  revenue  of  a  vicar  or  curate.  Tozvnleys  Illustra- 
tions of  Biblical  Literature  (vol.  II.,  p.  82),  and  Chevillier, 
the  Parisian  printer,  in  his  Histoire  de  V Impri))ierie  (Paris, 
1694,  4to),  says,  that  Louis  XI.  was  obliged  to  pledge 
1  Vol.  III.,  p.  430. 


The  Bible  before  the  Printing  Press.  451 

a  quantity  of  plate,  in  addition  to  the  joint  bond  of  a 
nobleman,  as  security  for  the  loan  of  a  ti-anslation  of  the 
Arabic  Physician,  Rhasis."  A  writer  in  the  American 
Encyclopedia  '  remarks,  that  "  Stow e  says,  that  in  1274 
a  Bible  finely  written  sold  for  fifty  marks,  about  ;^34, 
when  wheat  was  3s.  4d.  a  quarter,  and  labor  id.  a  day." 
No  doubt  some  prices  quite  exceptional  were  paid  for 
books  occasionally.  One  such  case  is  commented  on 
by  Maitland,  ^  who  endeavors  to  account  for  it,  without, 
however,  denying  the  fact  that  at  the  time  books  were 
extremely  rare  and  dear,  a  necessary  consequence  of 
the  slow  and  expensive  process  by  which  copies  were 
produced.  Maitland,  indeed,  is  "  incHned  to  suppose  that 
at  this  day  (1845)  a  copy  of  our  English  Bible,  paid  for 
at  the  rate  at  which  law  stationers  pay  their  writers  for 
common  fair-copy  on  paper,  w^ould  cost  between  sixty 
and  seventy  pounds  for  the  writing  only  ;  and  farther, 
that  the  scribe  must  be  both  expert  and  industrious 
to  perform  the  task  in  much  less  than  ten  months"  ' 
When,  therefore,  Richard  of  Bury,  chancellor  of  Eng- 
land, gave  the  Abbot  of  St.  Alban's  fift}-  pounds  weight 
of  silver  for  some  thirt}'  or  fort}-  volumes;  when,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  Humphre}',  duke  of  Gloucester,  pre- 
sented to  the  University  of  Oxford  six  hundred  books, 
including  one  hundred  and  twent}'  estimated  at  one 
thousand  pounds,  and  Peter  Lombard's  Liber  Se^itentia- 
rum,  about  the  begj-innino^  of  the  fourteenth  centurv,  cost 
thirty  shillings — nearly  equivalent  now  to  forty  pounds^ 
(that  is,  two  hundred  dollars),  it  must  be  conceded  that 
manuscripts  then  rated  a  good  deal  higher  than  printed 
books  do  now.  Hallam  is  of  opinion  that  in  the  middle 
ages  "  books  were  in  real  value  very  considerably  dearer 
(that  is,  in  the  ratio  of  several  units  to  one)  than  at  pres- 

'  Vol.III.,  p.  496. 

2  Dark  Ages,  p.  61.  '  P.  202. 

••   Hallam.  Middle  Ages.  ch.  ix..  i^ait  ii.,  p.  641,  note  5,  and  p.  642. 


452  The  Cano)i  of  the  Old  Testament. 

eiit,"  '  and  that  "  the  price  of  books  was  diminished  by 
four  fifths  after  the  invention  of  printing."  ^ 

Since  it  thus  appears  that  the  people  generally,  until  a 
comparative!}'-  recent  period,  could  not  read,  and  the 
few  who  could  had  not  the  means  to  pay  for  Bibles,  it 
was  therefore  neither  necessary  nor  possible  for  the 
Church  to  place  the  Scriptures  within  the  reach  of  all. 
Yet  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  Bible  was  by  any 
means  a  rare  book ;  on  the  contrar}',  there  is  evidence  at 
hand  to  prove  that  of  all  books  ever  written  it  has  been 
the  most  frequently  read,  transcribed,  and  translated, 
even  during  those  ages  when,  as  Protestants  commonly 
believe,  it  was  unknown,  or,  if  known,  known  only  to  the 
clergy,  and  studiously  concealed  from  the  laity  in  the 
impenetrable  secrecy  of  an  unknown  tongue. 

Let  us  therefore,  with  the  assistance  of  respectable 
Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic  writers,  endeavor  to  re- 
fute the  false  statements  made  on  the  subject  by  several 
Protestant  historians  of  the  Reformation,  and  still  be- 
lieved by  many  whose  knowledge  of  that  religious  revo- 
lution has  been  derived  exclusively  from  such  sources. 

Among  those  who  have  earned  an  unenviable  notoriety 
by  retailing  statements  of  the  kind.  Merle  D'Aubigne 
(d.  1872),  a  Swiss  minister,  who  professes  to  derive  his 
information  from  such  devoted  disciples  and  credulous 
admirers  of  Martin  Luther  as  John  Mathesius  and  Mel- 
chior  Adams,  deserves  especial  mention.  He  has  w-rit- 
ten  a  history  of  the  Reformation^  in  French,  which  soon 
after  its  appearance  was  translated  into  English,  and  pub- 
lished in  London.  It  has  already  passed  through  several 
editions  in  England  and  this  country,  and  is  generally 
regarded  b}-  Protestants  as  a  standard  authority  on  the 

1  Literature  of  Eiuope,  Part  i.,  cli.  ii.,  §  24,  p.  122,  note  I.  452 

'^  Literature  of  Europe,  Part  i.,  ch.  iii.,  6  147,  p.  253. 

•'  See  its  errors  exposed  and  refuted  by  Archbishop  Spaulding  in  bis  Hist, 
of  the  Prot.  Reformation. 


The  Bible  before  tJie  Printing  Press.  453 

subject  of  which  it  treats.  The  author  represents  the 
Bible  as  an  unknown  book  in  the  time  of  Luther.  Isaac 
Mihier,  Anglican  dean  of  Carlisle  (d.  1820),  had  with  some 
variations  told  the  same  stor}-  before  him.  And  most 
Protestants  believe  it  to  be  as  triie  asan\thing  tliey  read 
in  the  Gospels.  There  are,  however,  some  honorable 
exceptions,  among  them  being  Rev.  S.  R.  Maitland,  a 
minister  of  the  Church  of  England  and  librararian  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  His  position  in  the  latter 
capacity  enabled  him  to  take  a  more  correct  view  of  tiie 
so  called  Dark  Ages  than  is  generally  presented  by  Prot- 
estant writers,  and  he  has  given  expression  to  that  view  in 
a  Series  of  Essays  YinhXished  in  London  in  1844.  D'Au- 
bigne,  professing  to  have  derived  iiis  information  from 
the  early  disciples  and  biographers  of  Luther,  had  told  a 
blood-curdling  story  about  "the  indescribable  feelings" 
with  whicli  Luther,  when  a  student  at  the  university  of 
Erfurth,  in  his  twentieth  year,  for  the  first  time  gazed  on 
the  Bible,  a  book  which  he  discovered  by  chance  in  tiie 
library.'  Luther's  great  luck,  however,  did  not  end 
here,  for  his  historian  tells  us  that,  after  he  had  entered 
the  Augustinian  convent  at  Erfurth,  "  he  found  another 
Bible  fastened  by  a  chain."  Valuable  books,  even  the 
Sacred  Scriptures,  were  often  secured  in  this  way 
against  bibliokleptics.'  But  D'Aubigne  appears  to  em- 
phasize the  matter,  as  if  the  purpose  of  those  who 
chained  the  Bible  was  to  prevent  it  from  being 
read.  Had  that  been  their  intention,  would  they  not 
have  put  it  under  lock  and  key.  or  destroyed  it  out- 
right ? 

It  was  the  wonderful  discovery  of  the  Bible  by  Luther, 
as  described  by  D'Aubigne.  which  provoked  the  just 
and  withering  criticism  of  Maitland.  The  latter,  after 
exposing   some    of    the  innumerable  fallacies  and  false- 

'    D'Aubigne,  vol.  I.,  p.  131;     lh\^\.,  p.  132. 
»  Vide  Maitland,  Dark  A^-^  ]).  2S6. 


454  '^^^'^  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstanioit. 

hoods  which  the  persistent  calumnies  of  such  writers 
as  Robertson,  the  historian,  succeeded  in  inducing  the 
Protestant  pubHc  to  accept  as  real  facts  characteristic 
of  mediaeval  times,  especially  those  times  comprised 
within  the  dark  ages,  proceeds  thus  : — 

"  I  am  not  such  an  enthusiast  as  to  suppose  that  a 
series  of  paper  in  a  magazine,  desultory  and  superficial, 
as  I  sincerely  acknowledge  these  to  be,  can  do  much  to 
stop  the  repetition  of  falsehood  long  established,  widely 
circulated,  and  maintained  with  all  the  tenacity  of  party 
prejudice.  If  I  were,  the  occurrences  of  almost  every 
day  would,  I  hope,  teach  me  wisdom.  While  these 
sheets  have  been  going  through  the  press,  they  have 
brought  me  a  specimen  quite  worthy  of  Robertson,  and 
so  much  to  our  present  purpose  that  I  cannot  help  no- 
ticing it.  Even  since  the  foregoing  paragraph  was 
written,  a  proof  sheet  has  come  from  the  printing  office, 
wrapped  in  a  waste  quarter  of  a  sheet  of  a  book  which 
I  do  not  know  that  I  have  seen,  but  the  name  of  which 
I  have  often  heard,  and  which,  I  have  reason  to  believe, 
has  been  somewhat  popular  of  late.  The  head-line  of 
the  page  before  me  is : 

The  University.      n' v  T^uir-x-c-'c  T?  i.'T.v-,T3Ar  vn-ir^^-  Discovery. 

Luther's  Piety.       ^  ALBKxNE  S  KLI-ORMAl  IO^.        ^^^  ^^^^^ 

"Among  the  contents  of  the  page  thus  headed,  and  in 
the  column  under"  Discovery.  The  Bible,"  we  find  the 
following  passage  relating  to  Luther :  " — 

"  *  The  young  student  passed  at  the  university  librarv 
every  moment  he  could  snatch  from  his  academic  duties. 
Books  were  still  rare,  and  it  was  a  high  privilege  in  his 
eyes  to  be  enabled  to  profit  by  the  treasures  collected  in 
that  vast  collection.  One  day  (he  had  been  studying 
two  years  at  Erfurth,  and  was  twenty  years  of  age)  he 
opened  one  after  another  several  books  in  the  library, 
in  order  to  become  acquainted  with  their  authors.     A 


The  Bible  before  the  Printing  Press.  455 

volume  he  opens  in  its  turn  a-i  rests  his  attention.  He 
has  seen  nothing  like  it  to  this  moment.  He  reads  the 
title — it  is  a  Bible!  a  rare  book,  unknown  in  those  davs. 
His  interest  is  excited  to  a  high  degree ;  he  is  overcome 
with  wonder  at  finding  more  in  the  volume  tlinn  those 
fragments  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  uhich  the  Church 
had  selected  to  be  read  in  the  temples  every  Sunda\- 
throughout  the  year.  Till  then,  he  had  supposed  these 
constituted  the  entire  word  of  God;  and  now,  behold. 
how  many  pages,  how  many  chapters,  how  many  books, 
of  which  he  had  not  before  a  notion.'' 

"  Is  it  not  odd  that  Luther  had  not  bv  some  chance  or 
other  heard  of  the  Psalms? — But  there  is  no  use  in 
criticising  such  nonsense.  Such  it  must  appear  to  every 
moderately  informed  reader,  but  he  will  not  appreciate 
its  absurdity  until  he  is  informed  that  on  the  same  page 
this  precious  historian  has  informed  his  readers,  that  in 
the  course  of  the  two  preceding  years  Luther  had  '  ap- 
plied himself  to  learn  the  philosophy  of  the  middle  ages 
in  the  writings  of  Occam,  Scot,  Bonaventure,  and 
Thomas  Aquinas  ;  ' — of  course,  none  of  these  poor  creat- 
ures knew  anything  about  the  Bible. 

"  The  fact,  however,  to  which  I  have  so  repeatedly 
alluded  is  simpl}-  this — the  writings  of  the  dark  ages 
are,  if  I  may  use  the  expression,  viadc  of  the  Scriptures. 
I  do  not  merely  mean  that  the  writers  constantly  quoted 
the  Scriptures,  and  appealed  to  them  as  authorities  on 
all  occasions,  as  other  writers  have  d(jne  since  their 
day — though  they  did  this,  and  it  is  a  strong  proof  ot 
their  authority  with  them — but  1  mean  that  they  thought 
and  spoke  and  wrote  the  thoughts  and  words  and 
phrases  of  the  Bible,  and  that  they  did  this  constantly 
and  habituallv.  as  the  natural  mode  of  expressing  them- 
selves. They  did  it,  too,  not  exclusively  in  theologi- 
cal or  ecclesiastical  matters,  but  in  histories,  biographies, 

'    Diirk  .-iQ-fS,  pp.  467,  470. 


456  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

familiar  letters,  legal  instruments,  and  documents  of  ev- 
ery  description." 

Maitland  in  a  note  adds  the  following  remarks  regard- 
ing the  account  which  Dean  JNIilner  had  given  of 
Luther's  wonderful  "  Discover}'." 

"  After  I  had  written  this  I  was  curious  to  see  how 
Milner  (in  this  case,  the  Dean)  had  stated  the  matter ; 
and  I  was  surprised  to  find  the  following  passage,  with 
the  capitals  as  I  here  give  it : — 

"  '  In  the  second  year  after  Luther  had  entered  into  the 
monastery,  he  accidental!}'  met  with  a  Latin  Bible  in  the 
librarv.  Tt  proved  to  him  a  treasure.  Then  he  first 
discovered  that  there  were  MORE  Scripture  passages 
extant  than  those  which  were  read  to  the  people :  for 
the  Scriptures  were  at  that  time  very  little  known  to 
the  world  '  (vol.  IV.,  p.  324).  Really,  one  hardly  knows 
how  to  meet  such  statements,  but  will  the  reader  be  so 
good  as  to  remember  that  we  are  not  now  talking  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  but  of  a  period  when  Xkio.  press  had  been  half 
a  century  in  operation  ;  and  will  he  give  a  moment's  re- 
flection to  the  following  statement,  which  I  believe  to 
be  correct,  and  which  cannot,  I  think,  be  so  far  inaccu- 
rate as  to  affect  the  argument.  To  say  nothing  oi  parts 
of  the  Bible,  or  of  books  whose  place  is  uncertain,  we 
know  of  at  least  tiventy  different  editicms  of  the  lohole 
Latin  Bible  printed  in  Germany  only,  before  Luther  was 
born.  These  had  issued  from  Augsburg,  Strasburg, 
Cologne,  Ulm,  Mentz  (two),  Basle  (four),  Nuremberg 
(ten),  and  were  dispersed  through  Germany,  I  repeat, 
before  Luther  was  born ;  and  I  may  add  that  before 
that  event  there  was  a  printing  press  at  work  in  this 
very  town  of  Erfurth,  where,  more  than  twentv  years  af- 
ter, he  is  said  to  have  made  his  '  discoverv.'  Some 
may  ask,  what  was  the  Pope  about  all  this  time  ?  Truly, 
one  would  think  he  must  have  been  off  his  guard  ;  but 
as  to  these  German  performances,  he  might  have  found 


TJic  Bible  before  the  Pi  intuig  Press.  457 

emplovment  nearer  home,  if  he  had  looked  for  it.  Be- 
fore Luther  was  born,  the  Bible  had  been  printed  in 
Rome,  and  the  printers  had  had  the  assurance  to  me- 
morialize his  Holiness,  praying  that  he  would  help  them 
off  with  some  copies.  Itliad  jicen  [printed,  too,  at  Naples, 
Florence,  and  Piacenza  ;  and  Venice  alone  had  furnished 
eleven  editions.  No  doubt  we  should  be  within  the 
truth,  if  we  were  to  say  that  beside  the  multitude  of 
manuscript  copies,  not  yet  fallen  into  disuse,  the  press 
had  issued  fifty  different  editions  of  the  whole  Latin 
Bible,  to  say  nothing  of  Psalters,  New  Testaments,  or 
other  parts.  And  yet,  more  than  twenty  years  after, 
we  find  a  young  man,  who  had  received  'a  very  liberal 
education,'  who,  '  had  made  great  proficiency  in  his  stud- 
ies at  Magdeburg,  Eisenach,  and  Erfurt,'  and  who,  never- 
theless, did  not  know  what  a  Bible  was,  simph-  because 
'the  Bible  was  unknown  in  those  da3-s.'  "  ' 

The  stor)%  therefore,  about  the  Bible  being  unknown 
in  the  time  of  Luther,  and  of  its  discover}'  by  that 
worthv,  is  simply  one  of  the  many  slanders  concocted 
b}'  the  early  reformers,  for  the  purpose  of  justifying 
their  opposition  to  ecclesiastical  authority  and  of  gain- 
ing adherents  to  their  apostasy.  Such  reckless  slan- 
ders had  done  good  service  in  dragging  whole  nations 
into  heresy  and  keeping  them  there,  and  for  this  reason 
historical  romancers,  emulous  of  the  infamy  achieved  by 
D'x^ubigne  and  Milner,  have  repeated  again  and  again 
the  harrowing  tale  told  by  these  two  writers,  until  many 
an  otherwise  honest  Protestant  is  convinced,  that  it 
would  be  absurd  to  call  it  in  question.  Nor  was  it  until 
Protestantism  had  secured  a  firm  footing  in  Europe,  and 
its  permanency  had  become  apparently  an  assured  fact, 
that  Protestant  critics,  like  Maitland,  had  the  candor  to 
acknowledge  that  that  tale  was  untrue  in  all  its  de- 
tails, though  most  of   them  must  have  known  well  that 

1  Dark  Ages,  p.  469. 


458  J li(^  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

such  was  the  case.  This,  however,  is  simply  a  specimen 
of  the  agencies  employed  to  establish  the  Protestant 
religion,  and  perpetuate  pc^pular  prejudice  against  the 
Catholic  Church. 

It  was  onh' ,  however,  bv  the  force  of  persistent  false- 
hood that  the  delusion  was  kept  up  so  long  among  the 
Protestant  masses.  For  none  but  tlie  most  ignorant, 
such,  for  example,  as  believe  whatever  their  teachers 
say,  if  said  against  the  Church,  could  have  had,  if  they 
cared  to  hear  both  sides,  the  slightest  reason  for  suppos- 
ing or  suspecting  that  the  Bible  in  the  time  of  Luther  was 
an  vmknown  book. '  On  the  contrar}-,  the  evidence  that 
such  was  not  the  case,  and  that  the  Church  neither  then 
nor  formerly  was  opposed  to  the  circulation  of  the  Script- 
ure, was  within  reach  of  almost  every  one  who  could 
read  or  write  his  own  name.  For,  not  to  mention  the 
venerable  Syriac  and  other  translations,  which  long  be- 
fore Luther's  time  had  been  made  into  the  languages  of 
Christendom,  and  of  some  of  which  we  will  have  more 
to  say  immediately,  there  was,  besides  the  Greek  Bible, 
which  had  existed,  part  long  before,  and  part  from  the 
beginning  of  Christianity,  and  was  intelligible  to  the 
greater  part  of  Christians  in  the  East,  as  it  still  is  to 
man}^  of  them, —  the  Latin  Vulgate,  coeval,  it  may  be  said, 
with  the  Apostles,  and  universally  used  throughout  the 
West. 

And  let  it  not  be  said  that  Western  Christendom 
might  as  well  have  been  without  a  Bible,  if  it  had  none 
but  one  written  in  Latin.  For  Dr.  Davidson,  a  stalwart 
Protestant,  declares,  that  "  Latin.  ...  in  the  fourteenth 
century  was  all  but  universal."  '  He  might  have  added, 

'  For  the  ignorance  that  prevails  on  this  subject  among  Protestants,  their 
teachers  or  leaders  are  alone  responsible;  thus,  while  edition  after  edition  of 
D'Aubigne's  History  has  been  issued  by  them  in  the  most  attractive  style,  they 
have  allowed  Maitland's  work  to  get  out  of  print,  so  that  it  is  not  to  be  found 
now  in  any  Protestant  book-store. 

-'  Kitto's   Cvflopt-dia,  vol.  II.,  p.  917.     See  on  this  point    Ilallam,    Litcra- 


The  Bible  before  the  Piiutiiii^  Press.  459 

that  it  was  coinnionlv  imdcrstood  by  all  educated  per- 
sons, was  more  or  less  known  by  the  common  ])eoi)le 
even  as  late  as  the  time  of  Luther,  and  in  some  coun- 
tries did  not  become  obsolete  until  long  after  that  fallen 
monk  had  passed  to  his  account.  In  fact,  the  Latin 
language  continued  to  be  used  in  codes  and  edicts  under 
the  Byzantine  rulers  until  the  Eastern  emperor  was  com- 
pelled to  abandon  all  claims  to  supremacy  in  the  West. 
But  in  the  West  itself  Latin  was  taught  in  almost  every 
school  and  college,  and  remained  the  only  chamiel 
through  which  writers  on  ecclesiastical,  political,  scien- 
tific, and  historical  subjects  generally  gave  expression 
to  their  thoughts.  In  all  parliamentary,  judicial, 
administi'ative,  and  diplomatic  affairs,  the  proceedings 
were  mostly  conducted  in  Latin  and  recorded  in  the 
same  language.  For  such  purposes  the  rude  idioms 
spoken  by  the  Goths,  Vandals,  Lombards,  and  other 
barbarous  races  recently  established  in  Europe,  were 
altogether  unfit — and  the  consequence  was  the  gen- 
eral adoption  of  the  Latin  language  as  the  one  already 
most  in  use,  and  therefore,  on  that  account  as  well  as 
because  it  had  attained  its  full  growth,  the  only  form  of 
speech  in  which  it  was  possible  to  maintain  internation- 
al intercourse,  or  conduct  business  between  the  subjects 
of  the  same  government.  Among  those  uncouth  invad- 
ers who  had  crushed  out  Roman  supremacy  in  the 
West,  Latin,  if  not  generally  spoken,  was  soon  very  gen- 
erally employed  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  affairs  of 
state.  In  fact,  until  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury it  remained  the  official  language  of  the  French 
courts.  As  late  as  that  period  it  was  written  and  spok- 
en evervwhere  by  theologians  and  savants  with  a 
fluency  and  purity  not  altogether  unworthy  ol  the 
Augustan  age.     And  as  early  as  the  eighth  century  Eng- 

tare  of  Europe.  Part  iii.,  ch.  i  ;  Am  Encycl.  (Latin) ;  Encycl.  Brill.  (Latin); 
Spa'ding.  Hist,  of  Pnt.  Rcf.,  vol.  I.,  p.  294. 


460  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

lish  ladies  must  have  possessed  considerable  knowledge 
of  Latin.  For  some  of  them  composed  works  and  car- 
ried on  their  correspondence  in  that  language.  '  Even 
now  there  is  hardly  a  language  spoken  in  Europe  or 
America  that  is  not  largely  indebted  to  it.  The  very 
peasantry  in  some  parts  of  Europe  were  until  recently 
imbued  with  some  knowledge  of  it.  Indeed,  it  has  been 
truly  said  that  in  Poland,  for  instance,  not  much  more 
than  a  century  ago,  it  was  still  spoken  "  b}^  the  coachman 
as  well  as  the  bishop."  And  in  Hungarv  it  remained 
the  language  of  the  diet  and  count}-  assemblies  until 
far  in  the  present  century.  In  German v  and  Holland, 
at  the  present  time,  books  on  scientific  subjects  are  often 
still  composed  in  it.  Besides,  it  is  not  so  ver}-  long  since 
English  Protestant  writers  gave  it  the  preference  in 
discussing  questions  which  interested  none  but  the 
learned.  Even  the  list  of  Protestant  authors  who  com- 
posed their  most  celebrated  works  in  Latin  extends 
from  the  sixteenth  to  the  present  century,  thus  connect- 
ing the  present  age  with  that  in"  which  Luther  com- 
menced to  bellow  in  bad  Latin.  Amcjng  others  whose 
names  are  foiuid  in  that  list  are  John  Drusius,  Lewis 
de  Dieu,  Hugh  Grotius,  Solomon  Glassius,  John  Le 
Clerc,  Daniel  and  Nicholas  Heinsius,  father  and  son,  the 
celebrated  Vossius  with  his  four  less  distinguished  rela- 
tives, John  Gottlob  Carpzov,  John  Henry  Pareau,  John 
David  Michaelis,  the  Rosenmiillers,  father  and  son,  all 
of  Germany  or  Holland  ;  Claudius  Salmasius  of  France  ; 
Francis  Bacon,  Brian  Walton,  John  Milton,  Humphrey 
Hody,  Isaac  Newton,  Robert  L(Avth,  George  Bull, 
Thomas  Burnet  of  England ;  John  Pinkerton  (d. 
1826),  who  wrote  in  Latin  his  Lives  of  the  Saints  of  Scot- 
land;  Emanuel  Swedenborg  of  Sweden,  etc.  It  thus  ap- 
pears that  the  several  nations  which  arose  out  of  the 
ruins  of  the  Roman   Empire  in  Europe  had,  while  pass- 

'    Lingard,  Anglo  Saxon   Church,  p.  1S9,  note  4. 


The  Bible  before  the  Priiiniijr  Press.  461 

ing  from  Paganism  to  Christianity,  become  more  or  less 
familiar  with  the  language  then  (^and  still)  used  by  the 
Church  while  she  was  engaged  in  converting  and  civiliz- 
ing them.  It  is,  therefore,  evident  that,  had  the  Protes- 
tant part  of  Western  Christendom  up  to  the  present 
time  been  without  anv  other  means  of  access  to  the 
Scriptures  than  that  afforded  bv  tlie  Latin  Vulgate,  it 
woidd  be  untrue  to  say,  as  D'Aid)igne  and  Milner  ha\e 
done,  that  the  Bible  was  an  unknown  book  when  the 
reformation  commenced.  For  up  to  that  time  the  laity 
knew  even  a  good  deal  more  about  the  language  of  the 
Vulgate  than  since,,  although,  as  just  seen,  severai  ot 
them  in  the  interval,  while  writing,  preferred  it  to  their 
own.  The  very  fact,  therefore,  that  the  Bible  approved 
as  a  standard  by  the  Catholic  Church  has  been  all  along 
written  and  printed,  whether  before  or  since  the  Refor- 
mation, in  a  language  understood  by  all  educated  per- 
sons, is  a  sufificient  answer  to  those  who  say  that  she  is 
opposed  to  the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures.  But  let 
him  who  has  any  doubt  on  this  subject  remember  that 
it  has  alreadv  been  shown  that,  hardly  had  the  printing 
press  been  invented,  when  it  was  employed  by  the 
Church  to  provide  each  Catholic  nation  with  a  version 
of  the  Scripture  in  its  own  language — then  say,  is  it  not 
untrue  and  unjust  to  impute  to  the  Church  any  inten- 
tion to  withhold  from  the  people  the  Word  of  God  as 
contained  in  the  Bible  ? 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 


Ample  testimony  still  at  hand  to  prove  that,  when 
THE  Church  introduced  Christianity  to  Eng- 
land, SHE  placed  English  versions  of  the 
Scripture  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  though 
most  of  the  records  containing  that  testi- 
mony perished  in  the  wholesale  destruction 
to  which  the  english  libraries  were  con- 
SIGNED BY  THE  Protestant  reformers. 

But  let  us  push  the  inquiry  farther  back,  as  all  has 
not  been  said  that  can  be  said  on  the  subject  of  the  pre- 
ceding chapter.  For  it  can  be  easily  shown,  so  far  at  least 
as  England  is  concerned,  that,  although  the  records  of 
early  Christianity  in  that  country  are  extremely  meagre, 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  to  its  pagan  inhabitants  was  soon  followed,  if  not 
accompanied,  by  the  introduction  of  the  Scriptures.  That 
the  entire  Bible  was  translated  into  their  vernacular  from 
the  first  cannot  be  proved.  But  that  portions  of  it  were 
thus  rendered  intelligible  to  such  of  the  people  as  could 
read,  not  long  after  they  embraced  the  faith,  is  so  certain, 
that  the  fact  is  maintained  generally  by  Protestant 
writers  *  and  denied  by  nobody  who  has  examined  the 
evidence. 

Gildas,  who  belonged  to  the  sixth  century,  is  the  ear- 
liest  British  writer  cited  in  connection  with  this  subject. 
While  describing  the  Diocletian  persecution,  as  it  raged 

'  Vide  Home,  Inirod,  to  the  Study  of  the  S.  Script.,  ![.,  p.  246  ;  Blunt,  on 
English  Pihle. 


Engl.  Catli.  lUblc  Coeval  ivith   litii^l.  Christianity.     463 

in  England  most  probabl}'  not  more  than  a  century  after 
the  introduction  of  Cliristianitv,  he  remarks  that  "  all 
the  copies  of  Scripture  that  could  be  foinid  were  burned 
in  the  streets."  '  This  was  aboul  the  beginiiiui;-  of  the 
lourth  century.  And  by  that  .time  the  Scriptures  must 
have  been  rather  widely  distributed  among  the  people 
of  England,  as  a  few  copies  would  hardly  have  attracted 
the  attention  or  aroused  the  vengeance  of  the  perse- 
cutors. It  cannot  be  proved,  indeed,  that  any  of  the 
copies  then  consigned  to  the  flames  were  writtten  in 
the  vernacular,  but  that  some  of  them  were  ma}-  be 
fairly  supposed,  both  because  the}'  were  destroyed  as 
instruments  employed  in  propagating  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, which  would  imply  that  they  were  understood 
by  the  people,  and  because  it  a})])ears  that  not  long  af- 
ter translations  of  at  least  certain  portions  of  the  Bible 
were  in  existence  among  British  Christians.  And  this 
is  the  opinion  of  an  Anglican  minister  "  who  has  care- 
fully studied  the  subject. 

For  the  Venerable  Bede,  in  his  Ecclesiastical  History,  "^ 
says,  that  St.  Aidan,  Bishop  of  Lindisfarne  (d.  651),  em- 
ployed all  whom  he  had  about  him,  laymen  as  well  as  cler- 
gy, in  reading  the  Scriptures  or  learning  the  Psalms.  It 
need  hardly  be  observed  that  in  this  case  the  laymen  ot 
Northumbria  unable  to  read  "the  Latin  Vulgate  must 
have  had  a  version  in  their  own  language.  From  the 
narrative  of  the  same  venerable  writer,  '  we  also  learn 
that  Ccedmon,  a  lay-monk  of  Whitby  (d.  680).  who  had, 
when  an  illiterate  stable-boy,  gained  distinction  as  a 
poet,  composed  a  metrical  version  of  several  parts  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  from  English  translations 
provided  for  him  by  the  monks,  who  understood  Latin. 

According  to  Usher, '  Eadfrith,  Bishop  of  Lindisfarne 

1  Bibliothc'ca  Maxima  Palriini,  Tom.  viii.,  p.  708. 

i  Blunl,  English  Bible.  '  K.  III.  cli.  v. 

4  Ecil.  Hist.  B.  iv.,  ch.  xxiv.  •'    IVorks,  XII. 


464  The  Ca)ioH  of  the  Old  Testament 

(d.  72 1),  is  said  to  have  translated  most  of  the  sacred 
books,  and  a  similar  tradition  prevails  regarding  the 
Venerable  Bede  (d.  735),  Alcuin  (d.  804),  and  King  Al- 
fred (d.  901).  Of  these  works  the  earliest  one  extant  is 
an  English  Psalter,  the  first  fifty  psalms  of  which  are  in 
prose,  and  the  rest  in  verse,  it  having  been  written  bv 
Aldhelm,  long  Abbot  of  Malmesbur}-,  and  at  his  death, 
in  709,  Bishop  of  Sherborne.  A  copy  of  it  is  preserved 
in  the  National  Library  at  Paris.  It  was  printed  at  Ox- 
ford, in  1835,  and  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  earliest  mon- 
uments of  the  English  language  now  in  existence. 

Next  in  date,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  is  the  vol- 
ume known  as  the  Lindisfarne  or  St.  Cuthbert's  Evan- 
gelistarium  '  and  preserved  in  the  British  Museum.  It 
was  written  in  Latin  by  Eadfrith  about  680,  and  illumin- 
ated by  Ethelwold,  afterwards,  724-740,  Bishop  of  Lin- 
disfarne. Still  later  an  interlinear  English  translation 
was  added  by  Ealdred,  probably  the  monk  wh(j  was 
subsequently  (724-740)  Bishop  of  Chester  le  Street. 
This  rare  copy  of  the  Gospels  was  published  in  1857, 
and  also  in  1854-65. 

Another,  similar  volume,  of  a  somewhat  later  date, 
and  known  as  the  Rush  worth  Gospels,  is  preserved  in 
the  Bodleian  library.  It  is  the  production  of  Mac  Re- 
gol,  an  Irish  scribe,  about  820.  The  Enghsh  translation 
is  given  between  the  Latin  lines,  having  been  inserted 
about  a  century  afterwards  b)^  a  scribe  named  Owen 
and  one  Faerman,  a  priest  of  Harewood. 

In  the  tenth  century  there  was  in  circulation  a  trans- 
lation of  the  first  seven  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
which  had  been  made  by  Aelfric,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, from  994  to  1005.  This  Heptateuch  was  probably 
only  part  of  the  Old  Testament,  perhaps  of  the  entire 
English  Bible,  by  the  same  hand,  as  translations  of  the 

'   Alban    Butler.  Lives  of  the   Saints,    March   20 ;    Lingard,   Anglo  Saxon 
Chuirh.  ]■).  ifii. 


And  li)igl.  Cath.  Bible  Cocval  :cifh  Hug.  Clinsiianiiy.  465 

books  of  Kings,  Esther,  Job,  Judith,  Machabces,  and 
the  four  Gospels,  belonging  to  the  same  date,  are  still 
extant.  Copies  of  the  Heptateuch  are  to  be  found  in 
the  British  Museum  and  Bodleian  library.  A  copy  of 
the  Gospels  exists  in  the  library  of  Corpus  Christi,  Cam- 
bridge. The  Heptateuch  was  printed  in  1698.  What 
remains  of  this  old  version  justifies  the  supposition,  that 
when  it  was  made,  the  deutero  books  were  believed  by 
the  people  of  England  to  belong  to  the  Bible. 

There  are,  besides,  many  copies  of  the.  Anglo-Saxon 
Psalter  and  Gospels  in  the  British  Museum,  in  the  li- 
braries of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  elsewhere.  Some 
of  them  have  the  Anglo-Saxon  translation  between  the 
lines  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  others  contain  only  that 
translation.  Some  of  these  Psalters  were  written  as  late 
as  the  twelfth  century,  thus  implying,  as  has  been  re- 
marked, that  what  is  understood  generally  as  Anglo- 
vSaxon  was  in  use  long  after  the  Norman  conquest,  and 
even  when  medieval  English  had  to  a  certain  extent 
supplanted  the  preceding  form  of  speech. 

Wlwt  was  done  to  preserve  a  knowledge  of  the  Script- 
ures among  the  people  of  England  from  the  period  we 
have  now  reached  until  1582,  when  the  Rheims  New 
Testament  appeared,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  We  know, 
indeed,  that  from  the  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, when  Wickliffe  and  his  associates  were  the  first  to 
attempt  the  propagation  of  error  in  England,  with  the 
aid  of  corrupt  versions  of  God's  written  revelation,  un- 
til the  year  161 1,  when  King  James's  version  aj)peared, 
several  such  versions,  all  intended  for  the  same  purpose, 
were  made ;  for  nearly  all  of  them  in  a  more  oi"  less  com- 
plete state  remain  to  this  day.  They  helped  to  perpet- 
uate the  creed  forced  on  the  people  of  England  by 
Henry  VHI.  and  his  successors;  and  the  care  with 
which  they  have  been  all  along  preserved  shows,  that 
they  have   been   well  repaid  for  the  service  the\-   rcii- 


466  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

dered  to  national  apostasy.  Before  that  apostasy  was 
consummated,  and  while  the  struggle  between  truth 
and  error  was  still  in  progress,  not  only  must  there 
have  been  many  old  Catholic  versions  extant,  but,  it  ma}" 
be  reasonably  supposed,  new  ones  were  written ;  since 
the  advance  of  error  rendered  that  more  necessary  than 
ever.  Emulous,  however,  of  the  infamy  achieved  by  the 
satellites  of  Diocletian,  who  burned  the  Scriptures  in 
the  streets,  the  so-called  reformers  of  religion  seem  to 
have  taken  good  care  that  not  a  single  scrap  of  any 
Catholic  Bible  on  which  the)'  could  lay  their  hands,  nor 
any  written  relic  of  the  religion  professed  by  their 
forefathers,  should  ever  reach  posterity.  All  this  is  in- 
deed confessed  by  some  of  themselves.  Thus  John 
Bale,  a  protege  of  the  notorious  Cromwell  and  a  base 
apostate,  who  was  afterwards  appointed  Protestant 
bishop  of  Ossory  in  Ireland,  writing  in  1549,  says:  "I 
judge  this  to  be  true,  and  utter  it  with  heaviness,  that 
neither  the  Britons  under  the  Romans  and  Saxons,  nor 
y^et  the  English  people  under  the  Danes  and  Normans, 
had  ever  such  damage  of  their  learned  monuments,  as 
we  have  seen  in  our  time."  The  Protestant  writer  who 
copies  this  humiliating  confession  candidly  adds: 
"  About  that  time,  among  hundreds  of  other  libraries, 
those  of  the  city  of  London  and  of  the  University  of 
Oxford  entirely  disappeared,  the  very  book-shelves  of 
the  latter  being  sold  for  firewood. ' 

The  only  name  which  Layton,  one  of  the  royal  com- 
missioners whom  Henry  VIII.  employed  for  suppress- 
ing religious  communities  and  plundering  libraries, 
has  for  the  precious  contents  of  the  latter  is,  "  Dunce." 
In  his  report  to  "  Sec.  Cromwell  regarding  the  progress 
of  the  barbarous  work  in  which  he  was  engaged  at 
Oxford  University,  this  worthy  says:  "We  found  all 
the  great  quadrant-court  full  of  the  leaves  of  Dunce,  the 

»   Rev.  J.  H.  Blunt,  English  Bible. 


And  EnoI.  Cat /I.  Hiblc  Coeval  zcit/i  Engl.  Clinstianity.  467 

winds  blowiiiir  them  into  every  corner,  and  there  \vc 
found  one  Mr.  Greenfield,  of  Buckinghamshire,  gather- 
ing part  of  the  said  book-leaves  (as  he  said)  therewith 
to  make  him  scuels,  or  blaunshears  (inclosures  or  fenc- 
es), to  keep  the  deer  within  the  wood,  thereby  to  have 
the  better  cry  with  his  hounds.  "  ' 

What  an  irreparable  injury  must  have  been  inflicted 
on  the  interests  of  Christian  literature,  when  Henry's 
vandals  were  let  loose  on  those  precious  repositories, 
where  were  garnered  the  various  results  produced  by 
the  studies  of  the  best  minds,  which  had  been  devoted 
to  the  advancement  of  divine  and  human  knowledge  I 

Those  royal  delegates,  says  Anthony  Wood  '  (d.  1695), 
permitted  or  directed  the  libraries  fitted  with  innumer- 
able works  both  native  and  foreign  to  be  despoiled  at 
Oxford.  "  Hence  a  great  multitude  of  MSS.  having  no 
mark  of  superstition  about  them  (unless  it  were  to  be 
found  in  the  red  letters  on  their  titles)  were  adjudged 
to  the  flames,  or  the  vilest  purposes;  works  of  scholas- 
tic theology  were  sold  off  among  those  exercising  the 
lowest  description  of  arts ;  and  those  which  contained 
circles  or  diagrams  it  was  thought  good  to  mutilate  or 
burn,  as  containing  proofs  of  the  magical  nature  of  their 
contents."  Dr.  Bliss,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Ox- 
ford (d.  1857),  i"^  his  edition  of  Wood's  work  just  cited, 
has  drawn  an  equally  sad  picture  of  the  ravages  com- 
mitted at  Oxford  by  Henry's  delegates.  "The  mischief 
committed  at  this  time,"  says  he,  "can  hardly  be  con- 
ceived. I  have  seen  several  fine  old  chronicles  and  vol- 
umes of  miscellaneous  literature  mutilated,  because  the 
illuminations  were  supposed  by  the  reforming  visitors 
to  represent  popes  and  saints,  wiien  they  were  really 
intended   for  the  portraits  of  Kings  and  warriors  ;  nay, 

1  Maitland,  Dark  Ages,  p.  276. 

-  A   Protestant  Graduate  of  Meiton  College,  Oxford.   '^^^  f list,  and  Antiq. 
of  Oxford,  B.  I ,  p.  271,  Oxford  edition.  1674. 


468  TJic  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

some  were  absolutely  mathematical  figures!  The  mal- 
ice of  those  barbarians  was  only  equalled  by  their  igno- 
rance." ' 

Oxford  was  not  the  onh'  place  that  felt  the  malice  of 
these  barbarians.  Instigated  b}'  their  brutal  sovereign,  as 
well  as  by  their  own  hope  of  plunder  and  their  hypocrit- 
ical horror  of  what  they  called  poper}-,  these  sacrilegious 
wretches  pushed  their  investigations  wherever  there 
was  anything  to  steal,  or  any  object  suggestive  of  Eng- 
land's former  faith  to  profane,  mutilate,  or  destroy. 
"Whole  libraries,"  says  an  authority  quoted  by  Mr. 
Maitland,'^  "were  destroyed,  or  made  waste  paper  of, 
or  consumed  for  the  vilest  purposes.  The  splendid  and 
magnificent  x\bbey  of  Malmesbury,  which  possessed 
some  of  the  finest  manuscripts  in  the  kingdom,  was  ran- 
sacked, and  its  treasures  either  sold  or  burnt  to  serve  the 
commonest  purposes  of  life.  An  antiquary  who  trav- 
elled through  that  town,  many  years  after  the  dissolu- 
tion, relates,  that  he  saw  broken  windows  patched  up 
with  remnants  of  the  most  valuable  MSS.  on  vellum, 
and  that  the  bakers  had  not  even  then  consumed  the 
stores  they  had  accumulated,  in  heating  their  ovens." 

Anthony  Wood,  ^  quoted  above,  says :  ''  As  to  the 
abbeys  and  convents,  while  their  destruction  was  in 
progress,  such  little  care  was  taken  of  the  books  col- 
lected therein,  that  Bale,'  the  greatest  enemy  the 
Catholics  ever  had,  bitterly  complained  about  it  to 
Edward  VI.  ^  since  they  who  got  and  purchased  the  re- 
ligious houses  at  the  dissolution  of  them  took  the  libra- 
ries as  a  part  of  the  bargain  and  booty — reserving  of  those 

'   Maitland,  Dariz  .-i^i^vs,  p.  284.  nole  6.  *  Ibid.  p.  218.  nole  9. 

3  //isL  and  Aniiq.  0/ Oxford,  B.  I.,  p.  272.  ■•  Cited  supra,  p.  466. 

ft  What  follows  is  the  version  of  Spelman,  a  Protestant.  See  his  Hisi. 
(Uid  Fate  of  Sacrilege,  p.  1 13,  Lend.  ed.  of  18S8,  a  work  written  aV)Out  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Wood's  work  was  written  in  English  orig- 
inally, but  was  afterwards  translated  into  Latin.  It  is  that  Latin  translation 
which  is  now  before  us. 


And  Eiigi  Cath.  Bible  Coeval  wi/fi  Engl.  Christianity.  469 

libraiy  books  some  to  serve  their  jakcs,  some  to  scou.- 
their  candlesticks,  and  some  to  rub  their  boots;  som  • 
they  sold  to  the  grocers  and  soapsellers,  and  some  the)- 
sent  over  the  sea  to  the  book  binders.  And  after,  he 
also  addeth,  I  knew  a  merchantman,  which  all  this  time 
shall  be  nameless,  that  bought  the  contents  of  two  noble 
libraries  for  forty  shillings  each,  a  shame  it  is  to  be 
spoken:  this  stuff  hath  he  occasioned  instead  of  grey 
'paper  b}^  the  space  of  more  than  these  ten  years,  and 
jet  he  hath  enough  for  many  years  to  come." 

These  extracts  from  the  books  of  prominent  Protes- 
tants, who  knew  well  what  they  were  writing  about, 
will  after  all  give  the  reader  only  an  imperfect  idea  of 
the  wholesale  destruction  to  which  the  rojal  commis- 
sioners consigned  every  scrap  of  paper  or  vellum, 
written  or  printed,  when  it  was  supposed,  right  or 
wrong,  to  be  the  work  of  a  Catholic.  For  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  at  the  time,  as  was  the  case  long  after, 
many  a  zealous  reformer  unofficially  promoted  the  suc- 
cess of  the  fanatical  crusade  against  literature.  An  Angli- 
can bishop,  whose  name  is  not  given,  is  said,  for  example, 
by  a  distinguished  Protestant  writer  of  the  seventeenth 
centui-y,  to  have  burned  all  the  registers  and  docu- 
ments of  his  see,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  thus  get- 
ting rid  of  popery. '  Yet,  as  we  have  already  seen,  some 
literary  relics  of  former  ages  escaped  the  general  wreck, 
in  which  the  English  libraries  were  involved  at  the  Re- 
formation. That  some  of  Bede's  works  and  a  few  others 
survive  must  be  attributed  to  the  vigilance  with  which 
they  were  guarded  by  their  Catholic  ])ossessors.  or  to 
the  malignant  stupidity  of  the  royal  plunderers,  who 
may  have  believed,  what  not  a  few  Protestants  have 
since  asserted,  that  these  works  were  written  by  men 
who  professed  the  same  principles  with  themselves. 
At  all  events,  it  was  such  a  belief,  well  founded  however 

'   Maitlnnd,  Park  Agrs,  p.  499. 


470  The  Cano)i  of  tlic  Old  Tcstaificiit 

in  that  particular  case,  which  preserved  for  the  benefit  of 
common  Protestantism  works  attributed  to  or  proceed- 
ing from  Wyckliffe,  Purve}',  Hereford,  Tyndale,  Cover- 
dale,  and  others — prose  writers  or  versifiers — who  were 
contemporary  with  some  of  those  notorious  characters. 
That  among  the  works  which  disappeared  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  public  and  private  libraries  of  England 
during  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  were  many  English 
Bibles,  cannot  be  doubted.  Thev  must  have  been  then 
in  existence,  as  the  practice  of  translating  the  Scriptures 
into  the  language  of  the  common  people  commenced, 
as  we  have  seen,  at  a  very  early  period.  Besides,  the 
use  of  translations  in  England,  long  before  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII.,  is  placed  be)^ond  all  controversy  by  the 
testimony  of  writers,  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic,  all 
Englishmen  and  belonging  to  the  same  century  that 
witnessed  the  crimes  of  that  infamous  monarch.  Sir 
Thomas  Moore  (d.  1535)  declares*  that  "the  whole 
Bible  was,  long  before  W3'ckliffe's  da3's,  by  virtuous  and 
learned  men  translated  into  the  English  tongue,  and  by 
good  and  godly  people  with  devotion  and  soberness 
well  and  reverently  read."  This  statement  is  fully  con- 
firmed b)'  the  Protestant  Archbishop  Cranmer  (d.  1556), 
who  writes,  -  that  the  Holy  Bible  was  "  translated  and 
read  in  the  Saxon  tongue,  which  at  that  time  was  our 
mother  tongue  "  (that  is,  some  hundreds  of  jears  before 
he  wrote  ^),  "  whereof  there  remaineth  divers  copies, 
found  in  old  abbeys,  of  such  antique  manner  of  writing 
and  speaking,  that  few  men  now  be  able  to  read  and 
understand  them.  And  when  this  language  waxed  old 
and  out  of  common  usage,  because  folk  should  not  lack 
the  fruit  of  reading,  it  was  again  translated  into  the 
newer  language,  whereof  vet  also  many  copies  remain, 
and  be  daily  found."'     No  good   Protestant    will  qucs- 

'   Dial,  iii.,  14.  -'  r>r/.  to  Author.    J\-rsioii  of  154O. 

:*   Blunt,  Eii^^Ush  Bible. 


And  lingl.  Cath.  Bible  Coeval  with  liiigl.  Christianity.  471 

tion  the  accuracy  of  any  statement  made  by  such  a  man 
as  Cranmer,  and  as  little  will  he  be  disposed  to  reject 
the  evidence  of  John  Fox,  commonly  known  as  the  Eno-. 
lish  martyrologist,  who  died  in  1 587.  Now,  this  same  old 
Fox,  in  his  dedication  to  an  edition  of  the  Auirlo-Saxon 
Gospels,  dehberately  deposeth  that,  "  If  histoiies  be 
well  examined,  we  shall  find,  both  before  the  Conquest 
and  after  as  w^ell  as  before  John  Wyckliffe  was  born,  as 
since,  the  whole  body  of  the  Scriptures  by  sundry  men 
translated  into  our  country-tongue."  That  is  conclusive. 
But  what  became  of  all  those  translations,  or  of  the 
"divers  copies"  which  remained  as  late  as  1540,  when 
Cranmer  wrote?  They,  answ^ers  '  Rev.  J.  H.  Blunt,  an 
English  Protestant,  "doubtless  disappeared  in  the  vast 
and  ruthless  destruction  of  libraries  which  took  place  a 
few  3'ears  after  that  date."  And  then  the  men  of  the 
new^  creed,  who  entered  into  possession  of  the  rifled 
sanctuaries,  where  those  libraries  had  been  reverently 
preser\'ed  for  so  many  ages,  turned  round  and  upbraided 
those  of  the  old  creed  with  having  deprived  the  people 
of  the  Bible !  For  a  long  time  this  impudent  calumny 
did  good  service  to  the  cause  of  common  Protestantism. 
Nor  was  it  easy  for  Catholics  to  refute  it,  as  the  de- 
struction of  their  religious  books  had  been  so  tiiorough, 
that  they  were  able  to  point  to  only  a  few  fragments  of 
former  versions  as  evidence  that  the  Church  had  at  all 
times  provided  their  forefathers  \vith  the  Holy  Script- 
ures in  their  own  language.  But  the  exposui"e  of  the 
calumny  has  already  been  so  complete,  that  no  respect- 
able writer  would  now  venture  to  risk  his  reputation 
by  repeating  it.  Among  the  versions  which  disap- 
peared at  the  destruction  of  the  libraries,  was  undoubt- 
edly that  of  John  de  Trevisa,  Vicar  of  Berkele}',  Glou- 
cester, a  contemporary  of  VV3xkliffe.      Hart  well  Home* 

'  English  Bible. 

2  Bibl.  .4pp.  to  Vol.  II,  0/ In/rod.  to  Sliuly  of  the  .'^criptiins,  p.  63. 


4/2  The  Canon  of  tlie  Old  Testament. 

doubts  that  he  ever  made  one.  But  his  onl\'  reason  for 
doing  so  is  the  supposition  that  it  was  never  printed. 
Such  a  doubt  can  have  no  weight  against  the  testimony 
of  Anthonv  Wood,  who  plainly  asserts  that  Trevisa 
translated  the  Holy  Bible  into  the  vernacular,"  '  an  as- 
sertion which  is  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  other 
respectable  writers.  "  Besides,  Trevisa's  version  may 
have  been  written  before  the  printing  press  was  brought 
into  general  use  in  England.  Doubtless  other  works, 
written  as  well  after  as  before  his,  have  never  been  and 
never  will  be  printed.  Many  of  them,  when  the  English 
libraries  were  looted  by  Henry's  myrmidons,  were,  as 
we  have  too  good  reason  to  know,  doomed  to  the  flames 
or  treated  as  rubbish.  Such,  probably,  was  the  fate 
which  befell  the  version  of  Trevisa. 

1  Hist,  and  Antiq.  of  Oxford,  B.  II.,  p.  95. 
«  Vide  Dublin  Rev.,  vol.  I.,  p.  38^. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 


In  England  the  Scriptures  Never  Buried  in  Obliv- 
ion WHILE  THE  COUNTRY  REMAINED  CATHOLIC. 

Home,  in  the  part  of  his  work  just  cited, '  states  that 
"Christianity  was  planted  in  Britain  in  the  first  cen- 
tury," but  seems  to  think  that  the  British  had  no 
"translation  of  the  Scriptures  in  their  own  language, 
earlier  than  the  eighth  century."'  It  appears,  therefore, 
that  this  writer,  a  highly  respected  one  among  many 
of  those  readers  for  whom  he  composed  his  work,  be- 
lieved with  some  others  of  his  profession,  that  Christi- 
anity was  introduced  into  England,  and  planted  there, 
long  before  its  people  were  supplied  with  the  Bible. 
Be  it  so,  notwithstanding  all  the  evidence  we  have  to 
the  contrary.  But  what  follows  ?  Why  !  that  Christian- 
ity was  planted  in  Britain  by  one  of  the  x\postles,  or  by 
one  of  their  disciples ;  otherwise  the  planting  could  not 
have  occurred  in  the  first  century.  The  advocates  of 
this  theory,  until  lately  a  very  common  one  among 
zealous  Protestants,  must  therefore  hold  that  a  Church 
was  organized  and  continued  among  the  Britons  for 
several  centuries,  without  any  of  its  members  having 
ever  seen  a  Bible  in  their  own  language,  though  that 
Church  had  been  planted  by  x\postolic  teachers,  and 
maintained  afterwards  by  the  regular  successors  of 
those  teachers.  Either,  then,  the  Bible  was  translated 
before  the  eighth  century  into  the  language  of  the 
Britons,  and  in  that  case  every  vestige  of  that  British 
version  has   long  since  utterly  perished  and   been  for- 

i  P.  246. 


474  riic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament, 

gotten,  or  the  Apostolic  men  who  first  preached  Chris- 
tianity in  Britain  during  the  first  centurj^  as  well  as  the 
subsequent  generations  of  preachers  for  the  next  seven 
centuries,  failed  to  provide  those  British  Christians 
with  the  Bible — the  omission  resulting,  of  course,  from 
the  fact  that  those  preachers  believed  that  the  Britons 
could  be  very  good  Christians,  though  they  lived  and 
died  without  ever  seeing  a  Bible.  For  those  who  share 
Mr.  Home's  opinion  the  dilemma  must  be  a  rather  per- 
plexing affair.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  how  they  can  es- 
cape being  gored,  whatever  horn  they  take  hold  of. 
For,  British  translations  of  the  Scripture  made  and  pre- 
served during  the  first  seven  centuries  must  have  been 
made  and  preserved  under  the  auspices  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  thus  proving  that,  contrary  to  common 
Protestant  belief,  she  encourages  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  by  the  people.  On  the  other  hand,  the  or- 
ganization and  perpetuation  of  genuine  Christian  com- 
munities in  Britain  for  seven  centuries  without  the 
Scriptures  would  demonstrate,  what  no  thorough  Prot- 
estant would  admit,  that  pure  Christianity  without  the 
Bible  is  possible. 

In  the  same  part  '  of  the  work  which  is  the  subject  of 
the  preceding  remarks,  the  learned  author  observes,  af- 
ter enumerating  so  far  as  known  the  Saxon  versions 
made  from  the  eighth  to  the  tenth  century,  that  "  A 
chasm  of  several  centuries  ensued,  during  which  the 
Sacred  Scriptures  appear  to  have  been  buried  in  obliv- 
ion, the  general  reading  of  them  being  prohibited  by 
the  Papal  See,"  two  positive  statements,  which  de- 
serve to  be  separately  and  seriously  considered.  The 
chasm  referred  to,  if  real,  not  imaginar}-,  must  have  ex- 
tended from  the  date  of  .Flfric's  translation,  which  is 
assigned  to  the  end  of  the  tenth  century  by  Mr.  Home, 
as  far  as  the  year  \2go,  when,  as  he  states,  "^  an  English 

'   P.  6;,.  •■  1'.  03. 


Engl.  Catli.  Bible  Coeval  with  Engl.  Christ laiiity.    475 

translation  of  the  Bible  is  said  by  Archbishop  Usher  to 
have  appeared.     Now  the  existence   of  any  chasm   at 
that  or  any  other  time  since  England  became  Christian 
is  flatly  contradicted,  as  we  have  just  seen,  by  the  con- 
cordant testimony  of  More,  Cranmer,  and  Fox.    For  this 
reason  alone  the  chasm  theory  must  be  rejected  as  ut- 
terly untenable.     And   though,  in   consequence   of  the 
ruthless   manner  in    which    the    English    libraries  were 
swept  out   of  existence    by   the   Protestant    retormers, 
there  be  no  evidence  now  at  hand  to  prove,  that  any 
new  English  translation  of  the  Bible  was  made  within 
the  period  included  in  the  supposed  chasm,  we  have  no 
more  right  to  suspect,  that  at  that  time  the  Scriptures 
were  buried  in  oblixion,  than  we  have  to  say,  that  from 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  centurv  until  the  present 
time  the  Bible  has  remained  an  unknown   book  amoin-- 
the  descendants  of  English  reformers,  because  during 
that  period  the  Bible  has  never  been  translated  into  their 
language.     The  latter  assertion  would  be  pronounced 
preposterous,  since  King  James's  translation  has  remained 
in  use  among  English  Protestants  ever  since  it  first  ap- 
peared.    Then,  why  not  reject  the  former  assertion  as 
equally  preposterous,  seeing,  we  are  assured  bv  respect- 
able and  disinterested  witnesses,  that  both  before  and 
since  the  time  of  Wyckliffe,  and  even  up  to  the  period 
of  the  Reformation,  the  Scriptures  were  translated  again 
and  again  into  the  language  of  the  English  ;  in  fact,  as 
often  as  the  changes  in  that  language  rendered  that  nec- 
essarv.     And   if   during  any   protracted   period,   while 
England  remained  Catholic,  the  work  of  translating  the 
Scriptures,  which  seems  to  have  been  rarelv,  if  at  all, 
interrupted,  was  suspended,  may  it  not  be  reasonably 
supp(«ed,  that  translations  already  made  sufficed  for  the 
wants  of  the  people,  until  the  exigencies  of  the  language 
demanded,  or  more  favorable  circumstances  facilitated 
the  execution  of  othci's.      l^\en  at  the   worst  of  times, 


4/6  The  Cano)i  of  the  Old  Tcstaiiwjit 

during  the  revolutions  and  devastations  caused  by 
Romans  and  Saxons,  by  Danes  and  Normans,  it  would 
be  untrue  to  say,  that  the  Scriptures  were  buried  in  ob- 
livion, since  the  people  must  have  been  always  familiar- 
ized with  the  Scriptures  by  means  of  translations  made 
at  least  of  detached  books,  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles 
in  the  Missal,  not  to  speak  of  English  narratives  of  the 
Passion  of  Our  Lord,  or  some  other  part  if  not  the  whole 
of  His  life,  and  of  the  many  English  Psalters  known  to 
have  existed  from  the  earliest  times,  as  well  as  numer- 
ous pious  tracts  intended  for  the  instruction  of  all  classes. 
Those  fragments  of  all  such  writings  which  have  come 
down  to  us  from  various  dates,  between  the  close  of  the 
seventh  and  end  of  the  twelfth  centurv, — and  thev  are  by 
no  means  rare  or  apocr3'phal, — stamp  as  unreal,  unhistor- 
ical,  and  absurd  the  gratuitous  supposition,  that  in  Cath- 
olic England  the  Scriptures  were  at  any  time  buried  in 
oblivion.  Those  writings,  too,  besides  furnishing  satis- 
factory reasons  for  believing,  thatiit  no  period  wei"e  the 
Scriptures  treated  with  indifference  or  consigned  to  ob- 
livion in  Catholic  England,  clearly  prove  bv  their  con- 
tents, whether  fragmentary  or  complete,  that  no  attempt 
was  made  there  to  corrupt  or  mutilate  the  Bible,  until 
the  country  was  wrenched  from  the  Centre  of  Unity  by 
the  arbitrary  proceedings  of  a  monarch,  whose  brutal 
cruelty  was  only  equalled  by  his  beastly  instincts.  Be- 
sides the  versions  already  mentioned,  there  are  two 
English  translations  of  the  Psalter,  which,  as  well  as  tiie 
translation  of  Trevisa,  bring  us  close  if  not  fully  up  to 
the  period  when  the  first  attempt  to  infuse  an  un-Cath- 
olic  spirit  into  an  English  Bible  was  made  by  Wyckliffe 
or  his  associates,  about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Of  these  two  Psalters  several  copies  are  still 
preserved.  One  was  written  bv  William  de  Schorham, 
who  was  vicar  of  Chart  Sutton,  in  Kent,  in  the  year  1320. 
The  other  was  the  work  of  Richard  Rolle.  (d.  1349),  an 


Engl.  Lath.  Bible  Coeval  icitJi  Engl.  Christianity.       4-7 

Augustinian  })ricst,  and  comiiioiil}' called  the  llerniit  ot 
Hampole,  near  Doncaster,  York.  He  wrote  a  commen- 
tary on  the  Psalms,  and  having  consented  to  translate  it 
into  English,  he  inserted  in  the  translation  an  English 
version  of  the  Psalms,  the  Latin  of  which  had  been  in- 
corporated in  the  original.  He  was  also  the  author  of 
several  ascetic  tracts,  some  of  which,  at  least,  have  been 
published  in  the  Bibliotheca  Maxima  Patruni,  Tome 
XXVI.  In  these  tracts  he  cites  the  proto  and  deutero 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  indiscriminately,  thus  show- 
ins:  that  in  his  time  no  distinction  was  made  between 
the  two  classes  of  books  in  P^ngland. 

The  facts  cited  in  the  preceding  paragraph  abundant- 
ly prove,  that  for  several  centuries  after  the  tenth,  in- 
deed, it  might  be  said  up  to  the  Reformation,  the  Script- 
ures received  in  England  as  much  attention  as  was 
shown  them  there  at  any  time  before  or  since.  Nay, 
more;  for  during  those  centuries  they  seem  to  have 
been  more  highly  prized  than  at  any  previous  or  subse- 
quent period,  if  the  degree  of  esteem  in  which  they 
were  held  is  to  be  measured  by  the  amount  of  care  and 
expense  bestowed  on  their  embellishment,  or  by  the 
rank  they  held  among  the  most  precious  objects  pos- 
sessed bv  the  Church,  or  by  the  fact  that  they  were  pre- 
sented as  valuable  gifts  from  one  Christian  to  another. 

To  show  the  value  attached  to  the  Scriptures  in  the 
ages  of  which  we  are  speaking,  let  us  cull  a  few  out  of 
the  many  facts  which,  as  bearing  on  this  point,  Mait- 
land  has  collected  together.  Brethevold,"  who  became 
Bishop  of  Salisbury  perhaps  in  x\.D.  1006,  sent  two 
copies  of  the  Gospels  to  the  monastery  of  Glastonbury, 
where  he  had  himself  been  a  monk.  We  may  be  sure 
the  gift  was  a  valuable  one,  intended,  as  it  no  doubt  was, 
to  express  the  alTection  which  the  prelate  retained  for 
the  community  of  which  he  had  been  a  member.     And 

'   Dark  .-iges,  p.  2 10. 


478  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament, 

we  may  be  sure  it  was  highly  esteemed  b}"  his  former 
brethren,  although  Maitland  warns  us,  that  we  are  not 
to  suppose  that  the  monastery  had  no  copy  of  the  Gos- 
pels,— quite  a  superfluous  hint  however,  as  the  monks  had 
a  good  deal  of  the  Gospels  and  a  large  amount  of  the 
other  Scriptures  in  their  Missals,  Breviaries,  etc.  In  the 
vear  1141.  Hide  Abbe}-,  near  Winchester,  was  burned. 
The  monks  afterwards  gathered  out  of  the  ashes  sixtv 
pounds  of  silver  and  fifteen  pounds  of  gold.  The  silver 
and  gold,  or  at  least  a  good  part  of  it,  had  been  probably 
used  in  ornamenting  the  Scriptures,  though  on  this 
point  the  historian  is  silent.  For  we  are  told  that  a 
monk  of  Clugni,  who  was  afterwards  placed  in  charge 
of  the  Abbey,  stripped  ten  copies  of  the  Gospels  of  the 
gold,  silver,  and  J^reeions  gems  with  which  they  were 
adorned.' 

We  are  also  informed  that  Ralph,  Bishop  of  Roches- 
ter, in  1 1 14  gave  a  "  textum  pulchre  decoratum  "  to  his 
church.  Maitland  here  is  not  sure  that  "  textus  "  means 
a  copv  of  one  or  more  of  the  Gospels.  But  of  this  there 
is  no  doubt,  for,  according  to  Migne's  Lexicon  of  MednEval 
Latinit)\  the  gift  was  a  beautifuUv  gilt  vianuseript  eopy  of 
the  Gospels." 

Walter,  a  subsequent  bishop  of  the  same  see,  appoint- 
ed in  1 148,  also  donated  a  golden  manuscript  copy  of  the 
Gospels.' 

John,  Bishop  of  Bath  in  1 160,  when  bequeathing  to 
the  blessed  Apostle  St.  Peter  and  to  his  servants,  the 
monks,  his  collection  of  ecclesiastical  ornaments,  must 
have  left  several  copies  of  the  Gospels  to  the  Abbey 
church,  and  must  have  valued  these  copies  very  highly, 
for  he  eniunerated  them  among  the  most  precious  arti- 
cles which  a  bishop  has  to  dispose  of  at  his  death,  thus: 
"  In  crosses,  in  copies  of  the  Gospels,  in  chalices,  etc." 
Here,  Maitland  savs,"  the  reader  will  observe,  that  these 

1  Dark  Ages,  220.  -  P.  209.  ^   Ibid. 


Enoi.  Caih.  Bible  Coeval  ivitlt  Engl.  Christ lanity.     479 

costly  books  were  considered  as  a  part  of  the  treasure 
of  the  Church  rather  than  merely  as  books  ;  and,  indeed, 
the  Bisliop  bequeathed  them  as  a  distinct  legacy  from 
his  whole  library  (plenarium  armarium  meum),' which 
he  also  gave  to  the  Church.-"  In  fact,  these  "  books 
seem  to  have  been  considered  by  the  Bishop  at  least  as 
equally  valuable  with  the  crosses  which  he  used,  or  the 
consecrated  chalices  with  which  he  (jITered  the  holy 
sacrifice. 

About  1098,  Godfrey,  Abbot  of  Malmesbury,  in  order 
to  pay  the  tax  imposed  by  William  Rufus  for  the  pur- 
chase of  Normandy,  stripped  no  less  than  twelve  copies 
of  the  Gospels.  Even  in  this  case  the  very  coverings 
must  have  been  valuable.  And  the  language  in  which 
William  the  historian,  who  died  about  11 50,  refers  t(j  it, 
shows  that  the  act  of  the  Abbot  was  regarded  as  a  des- 
ecration of  the  Scriptures.  "  He  did  it,"  says  William, 
"  by  the  advice  of  the  most  wicked,  whom  I  might  name, 
if  the  participation  of  others  in  sin  would  lessen  the 
crime  of  the  principal."  '  Who,  after  reading  this,  will 
say  that  the  Bible  in  England  was  treated  witii  less  re- 
spect than  it  receives  there  now  ? 

William  de  Longchamp,  who  became  bishop  of  Elv 
in  1 190.  had  contributed  one  hundrcfl  and  sixty  marks 
towards  the  redemption  of  William  Rufus,  held  a  pris- 
oner by  the  duke  of  Austria,  and  to  raise  the  amount 
pawned  tJiirteen  copies  of  the  Gospels,  including  one  of 
great  value,  which  had  belonged  to  King  Edgar.' 

At  a  visitation  of  the  treasury  of  St.  Paul's,  in  1205,  by 
Ralph  de  Baudoke,  or  Baldock,  the  dean  (afterwards 
bishop)  of  London,  it  was  found  to  contain  ticelve  copies 
of  the  Gospels,  all  adorned  with  silver,  some  with  gild- 
ing, pearls,  ?i\-\d^ge>ns  ;  and  another,  called  '  a  wooden  codex 

'   Dark  Ai^es,  p.  200.  -'   Ibid.,  p.  21S.  ■'   \\m\. 

*  Tcxtui  lii^nens  desuper  oinntus   platis  argcnteis  (ienuialis  cum  subtili  tii- 
phoriij  in  >  uptrioii  limho  contiiieiis  xi.  cajisas  cum  reli'iuiis  iliideni  de>.criptis. 


480  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

of  tlie  Gospels,  which  was  ornamented  with  siher  gilt 
plates,  had  a  delicate  triphorium  on  the  upper  edge, 
and  contained  eleven  relic  cases  with  a  description  of 
the  relics.  Besides  these  Gospels,  there  were  six  Epis- 
lolaries,  four  Evangelistaries — books  containing  the  Epis- 
tles "and  Gospels  belonging  to  the  Missal — ^two  Bibles, 
one  in  ancient,  the  other  in  modern  letters, — the  latter 
consisting  of  two  volumes, — a  glossed  copy  of  the  Epis- 
tles of  St.  Paul,  the  same  of  the  Gospels  of  St.  Luke  and 
St.  John,  two  copies  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  with 
the  commentary  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  the  twelve 
prophets,  glossed."' 

Finally,  according  to  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  King  Edgar 
took  the  coronotion  oath,  in  1066,  on  what  is  called 
"  Christ's  book,"  no  doubt  the  Hcjlv  Gospels,  which,  be- 
ing publicl}-  employed  on  such  an  occasion,  could  not 
have  been  entirely  unknown.  And  this  old  Saxon 
chronicler  has  more  than  once  shown  in  the  course  of 
his  work,  that  he  himself  was  no  stranger  to  the  Script- 
ures, thus  implying  that  those  for  whom  he  wrote  at 
least  knew  that  there  was  such  a  book  as-  the  Bible,  and 
that,  when  they  read  in  the  Chronicle  how  the  church 
warden  Wyar,  in  the  year  1070,  carried  awav  by  night 
from  the  monastery  of  Peterborough  all  that  he  could, 
gospels,  mass  robes,  cassocks,  etc.,  they  did  not  run  to 
the  abbot  or  sacristan  asking  what  in  the  world  was 
meant  by  gospe/s.  Yet  ordinary  curiosity  would  have 
prompted  the  poor,  ignorant  creatures  to  do  so,  had 
the  cruel  Pope  already  consigned  the  Scriptures  to  the 
grave  of  oblivion. 

We  are  further  informed  ""  that  about  11 20  the  com- 
munity belonging  to  the  Convent  of  Saint  Edmondsbur}-, 
in  Suffolk,  had  determined  to  have  a  grand  copy  of  the 
Bible  written  and  illuminated,  though  nothing  is  said 
by  Warton  or  anv  one  else  about  the  disinterment  of 

'    Diiri-  .li^'fs.  ]i.  211.  "  Ibid.,  p.  494. 


Engl.  Cath.  Bible  Coeval  with  lingl.  Christianity.     481 

the  forgotten  tlociinient.  Aiul  the  sersices  (j1  "one 
Master  Hugh,  no  doubt  an  expert  scribe,  were  secured. 
But  no  material  was  found  in  that  part  of  the  country 
good  enough  to  transcribe  thereon  the  Word  of  God,  or 
to  display  the  perfection  which  Hugh  had  attained  in 
his  profession.  So  a  superior  article  of  })archnient  or 
vellum  was  ordered  from  Scotland,  and  the  grand  Bible 
was  written,  much,  of  course,  to  the  chagrin  of  the  churl- 
ish Pope." 

How  the  enlightened  people  of  England  could  so  long 
stand  those  stupid  emissaries  of  the  Pope,  the  bishops, 
who  carried  out  the  order  of  their  foreign  master  pro- 
hibiting the  reading  of  the  Scriptures,  is  more  than  any 
one  in  this  progressive  age  can  imagine.  Only  think  of 
Wulstan,  Bishop  of  Worcester,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eleventh  century,  and  a  fair  sample  of  all  his  Right  Rev. 
brethren,  at  the  time  repeating  the  whole  Psalter  on  his 
journeys,  to  keep  his  attendant  clerks  from  such  vain  talk 
as  is  the  common  snare  of  travellers,  and,  whether  "  ly- 
ing, standing,  walking,  sitting,  having  always  a  psalm  on 
his  lips,  always  Christ  in  his  heart."  '  All  this,  remem- 
ber, to  show  that  it  was  sinful  to  read  the  Scriptures. 

To  be  serious,  is  it  any  wonder,  let  us  ask,  that  a- 
minister  of  the  church  of  England,  after  carefully  exam- 
ining the  records  of  the  so  called  Dark  Ages,  should  say  :'' 
"  I  do  not  recollect  any  instance  in  which  it  is  recorded 
that  the  Scriptures,  or  any  part  ot  them,  were  treated 
w^ith  indignity  or  with  less  than  profound  respect.  1 
know  of  no  case  in  which  they  were  intentionally  de- 
faced or  destroyed  (except,  as  I  have  just  stated,  for 
their  rich  covers),  though  I  have  met  with,  and  hope  to 
produce  several  instances,  in  some  of  which  they  were 
the  only,  and  in  others  almost  the  only  books  which 
were  preserved  through  the  revolutions  of  the  monas- 
teries to  which  they  belonged,  and  all  the  ravages  of  hre, 

I   Dark  Ages,  p.  46.J.  "'   I'^'^'  '  P-  220. 


482  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

pillage,  carelessness,  or  whatever  else  had  swept  away 
all  the  others.  I  know  ....  of  nothing  which  Avoiild 
lead  me  to  suppose  that  any  human  craft  or  power  was 
exercised  to  prevent  the  reading,  the  multiplication,  the 
diffusion  of  the  Word  of  God  "  ?  We  have  now  seen, with 
the  aid  of  Protestant  writers,  that  when  England  was 
Catholic  she  revered  and  adorned  the  Bible  as  an  un- 
sullied bride.  And  we  have  already  found  by  the  com- 
bined testimony  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  critics,  that 
since  England  turned  Protestant,  the  life  of  the  Bible 
there  has  been  that  of  a  harlot.  But  it  is  not  true  that 
the  Bible  has  at  any  time  been  treated  in  that  country 
as  if  already  a  corpse  or  a  tenant  of  the  tomb. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 


The  reading  of  the  Scriptures,  whether  in  the 
Original  OR  Modern  Languages,  Never  generally 
Prohibited  by  the  Church.  But  in  particular 
cases  a  local  prohibition  to  that  effect  was 
sometimes  necessary. 

It  may  be  that  no  translation  of  the  Scriptures  was 
written  for  a  long  time  in  England  after  the  tenth  cen- 
tury. But  even  if  such  had  been  the  case,  it  would,  it 
seems,  be  very  easy  to  account  for  it  by  the  character 
of  the  times  and  the  rapid  changes  through  which  the 
vernacular  was  passing.  For  from  almost  the  middle  of 
the  ninth  century  until  late  in  the  thirteenth,  the  state 
of  affairs  in  England  was  such  as  to  seriously  interfere 
with  Hterary  pursuits  of  any  kind.  Thus,  from  the 
former  period  until  near  the  close  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, the  inroads  of  the  Danes  had  been  frequent,  u^ide- 
spread,  and  most  disastrous.  Pagans  to  a  man  almost  as 
long  as  their  inroads  continued,  they  seem  to  have  been 
actuated  on  those  occasions  by  a  ferocious  hatred  of 
ever)'thing  Christian;  whenever  the  spirit  of  conquest 
or  the  hope  of  plunder  attracted  them  to  England,  they, 
as  far  as  their  ravages  extended,  burned  churches  and 
monasteries,  not  even  sparing  the  lives  of  the  inoffensive 
inmates  found  in  the  latter,  or  of  the  wi-ctched  inhabi- 
tants who  fied  to  the  former  f(jr  safety.  Churches, 
especially  those  which  ranked  as  cathedrals,  and  mon- 
asteries, were  the  sources  of  wliatever  culture  and  learn- 


484  The  Canon  of  tlic  Old  Tcsiannnt. 

ing  England  possessed  at  the  time.  Their  destruction^ 
a  calamity  of  frequent  occurrence  at  that  period,  must 
have  effectually  checked,  at  least  for  a  time,  all  literary 
enterprise  on  the  part  of  those  whose  duty  it  was  to 
|)romote  the  cause  of  general  enlightenment. 

Long,  however,  before  the  Danes  had  abandoned  all 
hope  of  establishing  themselves  in  England,  that  country 
Avas  invaded  by  the  Normans,  in  1066 ;  and  in  the  bloody 
battle  of  Hastings,  which  was  fought  soon  after,  Harold, 
the  English  monarch,  lost  his  life,  William,  surnamed  the 
Conqueror,  won  a  crown,  and  the  Saxon  population  was 
placed  at  the  mercy  of  an  alien  race.  From  that  mo- 
ment may  be  dated  the  first  step  towards  the  extinction 
of  the  Saxon  language,  already  modified  to  some  extent 
by  that  of  the  Danes.  It  was  still  spoken,  of  course,  by 
the  natives.  But  Norman  French,  the  language  of  the 
conquerors,  was  employed  in  the  laws  of  the  realm, 
the  proceedings  of  parliament,  the  royal  palace,  and  the 
courts  of  justice.  At  last  the  two  languages,  like  the 
races  that  spoke  them,  coalesced,  and  the  result  has 
been  modern  English  ;  a  plant  which,  however,  had  to 
pass  through  several  stages  of  development  before  it 
attained  its  present  growth.  In  fact,  though  its  origin 
may  be  traced  away  back  to  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  it  was  not  until  the  sixteenth  that  it  was  so  far 
improved  as  to  be  intelligible  to  those  who  read  or 
write  it  at  the  present  day.  The  dialect  spoken  in 
England  from  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  to  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century  has  so  many  characteristics  of 
Saxon  and  English,  that  it  is  called  semi-Saxon  by 
philologists.  It  is  therefore  evident,  that  for  several 
centuries  after  the  Norman  conquest  the  language 
spoken  by  the  people  was  in  a  state  of  transition,  so  that 
books  in  that  language,  though  understood  by  those 
living  when  they  were  written,  could  be  of  little  use  to 
any  one  a  century  or  even  half  a  century  later,  while 


Tlic  Bible  not  prohibited  by  the  Chureh.  4S3 

the  idioms  were  so  varied,  that  writings  originating  in 
one  part  of  the  coiuitry  were  more  or  less  unintelligible 
in  another.  Translations  of  the  Bible,  if  then  made, 
must  have  rapidl}-  superseded  each  other. 

Certainly,  no  trace  has  yet  been  found  of  an  English 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  belonging  to  any  date 
between  the  end  of  the  tenth  and  the  close  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.  But  that,  especially  in  view  of  the 
general  destruction,  to  which  all  Catholic  writings, 
theological  or  Scriptural,  were  consigned  at  the  Refor- 
mation, not  to  speak  of  the  previous  accidents  to  which 
they  were  exposed,  by  no  means  proves  that  no  such 
translation  had  been  made.  xAnd  much  less  is  it  a  reason 
why  we  should  suspect  that  Mr.  Maitland's  memory 
deceived  him,  or  that  his  researches  among  the  eccle- 
siastical records  of  England  were  incomplete,  when  as  a 
result  of  these  reseaiches  he  announced:  "  I  do  not  recol- 
lect an3Mnstancein  which  it  is  recorded,  that  the  Script- 
ures or  any  part  of  them  were  treated  ....  with  less 
than  profound  respect."" '  And  we  are  to  remember  that 
he  wishes  every  general  statement  or  remark  that  he  may 
offer  to  be  applied  to  the  period  extending  from  A.D. 
800  to  A.D.  1200,  without,  however,  considering  himself 
precluded  from  the  use  of  earlier  or  later  records ;  and 
that  his  records  refer  generally  to  Western  Europe  as 
well  as  to  England. '  Besides,  to  assert  or  insinuate, 
that,  because  not  a  fragment  remains  to  prove  that  any 
translation  of  the  Bible  was  made  for  several  centuries 
after  the  tenth,  the  Scriptures  were  then  buried  in  ob- 
lition,  is  not  only  contradicted  but  refuted  by  a  recent 
Protestant  writer  of  England,  '  who,  after  stating  what 
■every  one  knows,  "that  the  vernacular  tongue  of  the 
country  (England)  had  been  so  altered  by  its  contact 
with  the  French  spoken  by  the  upper  classes  as  to  make 
new  translations  of  the  Scripture  necessary  "  (this  rc- 

1  Dark  Ages,  p.  220.     -   Ibid  .  \\  5.         ^  Rev.  J.  H.  Blunt.  English  Bible. 


486  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

mark  refers  t(3  the  period  between  the  Conquest  and  the 
time  of  Wyckliffe),  appeals  t(3  the  authority  of  Cranmer, 
More,  and  Fox,  '  to  show  that  such  translations  were 
actuall}'  written. 

No  more  unfounded  statement  was  ever  advanced 
than  the  one  we  are  combating.  It  was  quite  easy  for 
the  writer  who  made  it  to  have  filled  up  his  chasm  with 
Saxon  versions,  some  of  which  must  have  been  used  long 
after  the  tenth  century,  or  with  the  always  numerous 
copies  of  the  Vulgate  in  Latin,  a  language  with  which 
at  the  time  all  educated  persons  in  England,  as  else- 
where, were  more  or  less  familiar.  Had  this  pile  of 
pure  Biblical  material  been  insufficient  for  his  purpose, 
the  writer  certainly  had  at  hand  a  vast  accumulation  con- 
sisting of  other  materials,  such  as  Missals,  Commentaries, 
Homilies,  Rituals,  Pontificals,  etc.,  all  teeming  with  the 
Scriptures,  and,  even  though  no  better  than  trash  in  his 
eyes,  yet,  being  intensely  Biblical,  really  good  enough  for 
closing  the  gaping  chasm  his  imagination  has  conjured 
up.  Strange  that,  wdiile  studying  the  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory of  his  country,  it  never  occurred  to  him,  that  the 
chasm  in  question,  if  not  closed  or  cleared  in  any  other 
way,  could  at  least  be  spanned  with  such  illustrious  men 
as  Lanfranc,  Anselm,  Langton,  all  primates  of  England, 
Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  John  of  Salisbury, 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  a  Scotchman,  and  other  eminent 
British  scholars,  who  flourished  between  the  tenth  and 
thirteenth  centuries.  Was  it  possible,  that  the  Scrip- 
tures could  have  been  buried  in  oblivion,  while  such 
ecclesiastics  shed  a  lustre  on  the  country  of  their  birth 
or  adoption  by  the  sanctity  of  their  lives,  by  the  extent  of 
their  learning,  and  by  their  devotion  to  the  spiritual  inter- 
ests of  those  over  whom  they  had  been  placed  as  pastors? 
Surely,  Grosseteste,  who  in  his  time  was  remarkable  for 
the  care  with  which  he  watched  over  his  flock,  and  so 

'    Mde  supra,  p.  Xl^- 


The  Bible  not  prohibited  hv  (he  Chine/i.  4S7 

distinguished  for  learning,  that  Roger  Bacon  declared 
liim  perfect  in  divine  and  human  knowledge,  '  -would 
not  have  allowed  the  Scriptures  to  be  utterly  forgotten. 
A  prelate  who,  like  him,  endeavored  to  })reserve  from 
oblivion,  or  at  least  to  bring  to  the  knowledge  of  Western 
Christendom,  the  apocryphal  Testament  of  the  Tivelve  Pa- 
triarchs, by  translating  it  into  Latin,  "  was  not  the  man 
to  permit  the  canonical  Scriptures  to  be  treated  witii 
indifference  or  lost  sight  of  by  his  people.  In  this  con- 
nection it  is  also  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  division  of 
the  Bible  into  chapters  has  been  attributed  to  two  of 
the  other  prelates  just  named — Laniranc  and  Langton. 
Bale,  Protestant  bishop  of  Ossory,  we  are  told  by  a 
Protestant  critic, '  "  with  great  appearance  of  probability 
ascribes  these  divisions  to  Stephen  Langton,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury."  And  although  it  is  now  generally  ad- 
mitted that  the  real  author  of  that  arrangement  was 
Cardinal  Hugo  de  Sancto  Caro,  '  about  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  fact  that  Bale,  who  preceded 
Home  about  three  centuries,  supposed  that  an  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  before  the  end  of  the  period  in- 
cluded in  Home's  chasm,  felt  sufficient  interest  in  the 
Scriptures  to  divide  them  into  chapters,  or  was  compe- 
tent for  such  a  task,  proves  that,  when  Bale  wrote,  no 
Protestant  suspected  that  there  had  been  in  the  eccle- 
siastical history  of  England  a  period  of  several  centuries, 
commencing  with  the  end  of  the  tenth,  during  which  the 
Scriptures  were  buried  in  oblivion.  Anselm,  John  of 
Salisbury,  Richard  of  St.  Victor,  like  the  three  just  men- 
tioned, and  not  a  few  others  belonging  to  the  period  be- 
tween the  tenth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  all  of  whom 
were  either  born  in  Great  Britain  or  spent  a  great  part 
of  their  lives  there,  have  left  behind  them  works  which 
fully  attest,  that  the  Bible  was  witi^  all  of  them  a  favorite 

'   Lingard,  HiU.  of  England,  v..l.  ii.,  p.  248.     -  Kitto's  Cycl.,  vol.  II.,  p.  631. 
:i  11-,],^     p    ^,7.  '    Priileaux,  Con.,  vol.  T.,  p.  276. 


488  The  Canon  of  t/ic  Old  Testament. 

stud} .  In  fact,  while  looking  over  their  works,  anv 
reader  cannot  but  be  convinced,  that  the  principal  ob- 
ject which  they  had  in  view,  as  writers,  was  very  gener- 
ally the  elucidation  of  the  sacred  text,  as  a  means  of 
propagating  divine  truth  and  promoting  the  cause  of 
Christian  morals.  To  insinuate  that  the  Scriptures  were 
treated  by  such  men,  or  by  those  over  whom  they  had 
any  control,  that  is,  the  entire  population  of  England, 
with  less  than  profound  respect,  is  an  outrage  on  com- 
mon sense  and  a  libel  on  the  illustrious  dead. 

But  it  w^as  not  enough  to  cooly  assume  that  the  Script- 
ures in  England  "  were  buried  in  oblivion"  for  several 
centuries  after  the  tenth  ;  the  blame  for  that  dreadful 
state  of  affairs  must  be  laid  at  the  door  of  "  the  Papal 
See."  This  statement  is  even  more  gratuitous  than  the 
other,  w^hich  finds  a  semblance  of  probability  in  the  act- 
ual absence  of  any  vestige  of  a  translation  made  within 
three  centuries  after  the  tenth,  w^hereas,  as  we  shall  see, 
it  was  not  until  the  fifteenth  century  that  the  reading  of 
translations  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  vernacular  of  the 
English  was  forbidden.  And  when  the  prohibition  to 
that  effect  was  issued,  it  was  not  aimed  at  all  transla- 
tions in  general,  but  a  certain  class  deservedly  suspected, 
and  was,  besides,  the  work  of  an  English  council,  not  a 
decree  of  "  the  Papal  See." 

In  fact,  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  warrant  the  state- 
ment now  under  consideration,  except  the  policy  al- 
leged by  a  certain  class  of  writers  to  have  been  pursued 
by  Innocent  III.,  who  was  Pope  from  1 198  to  12 16.  But 
from  no  act  or  word  of  that  great  Pontiff  can  it  be 
shown,  that  the  general  reading  of  the  Scriptures  was 
prohibited  by  him.  Indeed,  the  charge,  if  made  against 
any  Pope,  is  false.  But  let  us  examine  the  grounds  on 
which  it  is  urged,  particularly  against  Innocent.  It  ap- 
pears that  the  year  after  the  election  of  Innocent,  the 
Bishop  of  Metz  wrote  to  him,  complaining  that  some 


The  Bible  not  prohibited  by  the  Chureh.  489 

persons  in  his  diocese,  having  procured  a  French  trans- 
lation of  the  Gospels,  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  the  Psal- 
ter, and  the  commentaries  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great  on 
the  Book  of  Job,  met  in  secret,  men  and  women,  for  the 
purpose  of  reading  and  explaining  the  Scriptures  and 
expounding  the  mysteries  of  the  faith;  and  that  they 
treated  with  contempt  the  ecclesiastics,  who  declined  to 
take  any  part  in  their  clandestine  proceedings.  Such 
are  the  principal  points  dwelt  on  by  Innocent '  in  his 
answer  to  the  Bishop.  Innocent,  "  Though"  holding 
(we  use  his  own  words)  that  "  the  desire  to  know  the 
Scripture  and  receive  edification  from  reading  it  is  lau- 
dable," expresses  his  displeasure  at  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  done  in  this  instance,  and  disapproves  of  "simple 
and  ignorant  persons"  attempting  to  explain  the  m)-s- 
teries  of  the  faith,  "  since  it  is  not  given  to  ever}-  one  to 
understand  them,"  or  to  interpret  the  "  Sacred  Script- 
ures," which  "  conceal  a  sense  so  profound"  that  "  even 
the  learned  do  not  always  succeed  in  expounding  it." 
He  also  recommends  the  Bishop  to  communicate  his  in- 
structions to  those  for  whom  the}'  were  intended,  to 
ascertain  the  author  of  the  translation,  the  motives  that 
led  to  its  execution,  as  well  as  the  use  that  was  made  of 
it,  and  to  forward  to  himself  a  report  on  the  subject. 
What  the  result  was,  we  are  not  informed.  Opposition 
to  legitimate  authority  seems  to  have  ceased,  as  there  is 
no  further  reference  to  the  matter.  At  all  events,  there 
is  nothing  in  the  proceedings,  from  beginning  to  end.  so 
far  as  can  now  be  known,  to  justify  any  writer  in  assert- 
ing that  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vulgar  or 
original  tongues  was  then  "prohibited  by  the  Papal 
See." 

But  it  is  hardly  necessary  for  a  Catholic  writer  to  un- 
dertake the  task  of  vindicating  the  conduct  of  Innocent, 
in  connection  with  the  affair  of  Metz.    For  that  has  been 

1  Tom.  I.,  Epist.  141,  142. 


490  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

done  in  a  way  to  silence  his  accusers  by  Dr.  Frederic 
von  Hurter,  minister  of  the  Calvinistic  church  at  Schaff- 
hausen,  Switzerland,  a  writer  whose  studies  in  this  and 
bther  departments  of  ecclesiastical  history  contributed  to 
his  renunciation  of  the  heresy  in  which  he  had  been  edu- 
cated. This  distinguished  scholar,  reviewing  the  corre- 
spondence to  which  we  have  just  referred,  sa)^s,  "  With- 
out regard  to  the  epoch  when  these  letters  were  written, 
they  have  been  considered  as  an  evidence  of  a  spirit 
hostile  to  the  light.  They  have  been  appealed  to  for 
the  purpose  of  proving  that  the  Pope  sought  to  pro- 
scribe the  study  of  the  holy  Scripture.  But  the  letter 
addressed  to  the  inhabitants  of  Metz,  and  many  others 
already  cited,  sufficiently  prove  that,  instead  of  propos- 
ing to  himself  such  an  object,  he  wished  on  the  contrarv 
that  the  faithful  should  be  instructed  by  means  of  the 
Holy  Scripture.  He  did  not  disapprove  so  much  of  the 
translation  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  as  of  an  attempt 
made  by  an  unknown  hand,  unprovided  with  the  ability 
and  necessar}'  right  to  execute  it.  If  we  nevertheless 
reflect  on  the  profound  veneration  entertained  then  for 
the  Holy  Scripture,  considered  as  the  Divine  Word,  the 
scruple  expressed  by  Innocent  regarding  this  transla- 
tion should  appear  to  us  by  no  means  blamable.  Be- 
sides, when  we  consider  that  those  who  attacked  the 
Church  often  availed  themselves  of  the  sacred  text  bad- 
ly understood  or  falsely  interpreted,  we  shall  no  longer 
be  surprised  at  the  declaration  of  the  Pope,  especially 
if  we  reflect  on  his  duties  as  head  of  Christendom, — du- 
ties which  impose  on  him  the  task  of  guarding  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Sacred  Word,"  '  Dr.  Hurter's  conclusion 
that  Innocent's  disapprobation  had  not  for  its  object  a 
translation  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  but  the  justly  suspi- 
cious origin  of  a  particular  translation  in  the  same  vulgar 
tongue,  is  corroborated  by  the  fact  that,  as  we  shall  see, 

'    Geschichte  Papst  Innocenz  des  Dritlen  und  seiner  Zeit-genossen,  B.  13. 


The  Bible  not  prohibited  by  the  Chitreh.  491 

translations  of  the  Scriptures  in  that  very  tongue  had 
been  made  long  before,  as  they  are  still  made,  without 
any  protest  or  remonstrance  from,  but  rather  with  the 
knowledge  and  consent  of  the  actual  occupant  of  "the 
Papal  See." 

As  we  are  engaged  on  the  policy  pursued  by  Innocent 
in  relation  to  an  obscure  class  of  errorists,  who  appeared 
in  the  early  part  of  his  pontificate,  this  seems  the  proper 
place  for  a  brief  reference  to  his  treatment  of  the  Albi- 
gensians  at  a  later  period,  as  it  constitutes  the  principal 
count  in  the  indictment  of  which  his  accusers  have  made 
him  the  object.  Of  the  Albigensians  little  may  be  said 
here.  They  are  charged,  and  not  unjustly,  with  grave 
crimes,  as  well  as  grave  errors,  which  had  already  re- 
sulted in  grave  disorders,  and  if  unchecked  were  cer- 
tain to  lead  to  more  disastrous  consequences.  Innocent, 
desirous  of  recalling  them  to  a  sense  of  duty  by  gentle 
means,  commissioned  some  monks  to  imdertake  their 
conversion  by  instructing  them  in  the  principles  of 
Christian  belief  and  practice.  But  their  labors  not  hav- 
ing been  blessed  with  the  success  which  was  expected, 
they  were  succeeded  by  two  papal  legates,  who,  barefoot 
and  practising  Apostolic  poverty,  travelled  up  and  down 
the  country  inhabited  by  the  Albigensians,  endeavoring 
to  reform  the  obstinate  sectarists  by  word  and  example. 
At  last,  one  of  the  legates  having  been  brutally  assassi- 
nated by  the  agents  of  these  desperate  fanatics,  the  crisis 
demanded  the  application  of  drastic  measures,  as  religion 
and  society  had  to  be  saved  at  any  cost.  So  Innocent 
seems  to  have  thought,  and  the  war  commenced.  The 
crusade,  as  the  struggle  was  called,  ended  with  the  over- 
throw of  the  Albigensians  and  their  protectors.  While  it 
lasted,  frightful  excesses  are  said  to  have  been  commit- 
ted, which,  though  common  to  both  sides,  stained  the 
glory  of  those  who  professed  to  tight  as  champions  of 
the  faith.     When   Innocent  heard  of  these  excesses,  he 


492  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testainetit. 

was  oppressed  with  grief  at  the  thought  that  such  deeds 
of  violence  should  have  been  committed  in  the  name  of 
religion.  Nor  could  it  have  been  any  mitigation  of  his 
sorrow  to  reflect,  that  both  sides  were  responsible  for 
the  atrocities  which  disgraced  the  sanguinary  contest. 

D:-.  Hurter  here  may  be  allowed  to  determine  the  de- 
gree of  responsibiUt}'  which  attaches  to  Innocent  for 
the  manner  in  which  the  crusade  was  conducted.  "  Al- 
though (says  this  disinterested  critic)  great  excesses 
may  have  been  committed  in  the  South  of  France 
against  humanity  and  justice,  in  the  course  of  these  six 
years,  and  although  the  forces  sent  thither  to  re-establish 
the  authorit)'  of  the  Church  carried  on  instead  a  war  of 
indiscriminate  rapine,  still  Innocent  cannot  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  either.  His  orders  were  not  carried  out, 
and  he  was  led  by  false  reports  to  take  measures  which 
he  would  never  have  taken,  had  he  known  the  true  state 
of  affairs. "  ' 

Mr.  Home, '  who  in  this  instance  adopts  the  statement 
of  Hallam, '  informs  his  readers,  that  "  the  Council  of 
Toulouse,  in  1229,  prohibited  the  laity  from  possessing 
the  Scriptures,  and  this  prohibition  was  frequently  re- 
peated upon  subsequent  occasions.  "  It  is  certainly  true 
that  the  council  of  Toulouse,  which,  however,  was  no 
more  than  a  diocesan,  or  at  most  a  provincial  synod, 
whose  decrees  were  purely  local  in  their  range,  did  pro- 
hibit the  reading  of  the  Scripture  in  the  vulgar  tongue 
by  the  laity,  except  the  Psalter,  Breviary,  and  Office  of 
Our  Blessed  Lady.  But  wh}'  ?  As  the  only  means  of 
checking  the  spread  of  those  dangerous  principles  pro- 
fessed by  the  Albigensians,  and  of  preventing  the  crimi- 
nal excesses  to  which  the  history  of  the  times  shows 
that  those  principles  inevitably  led.  The  sectarists, 
w^hose  conduct  was  the  occasion  of  this  prohibition,  had 

1  Innocent  III.,  vol.  II.,  p.  692.  -  Bibliographical  App.,  p.  56. 

3   The  Middle  Ages,  ch.  ix.,  Part.  II.,  p.  573. 


The  Bible  not  prohibited  by  the  Chureh.  493 

obtained  a  French  translation  of  the  Scriptnres  prepared 
expressly  for  the  purpose  of  sanctioning  their  dangerous 
tenets  and  countenancing  their  unlawful  proceedings. 
To  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  it  appeared 
that  the  only  remedy  for  the  evil  was  to  prohibit  the 
circulation  of  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  and  it  yet  re- 
mains to  be  proved  that  they  were  mistaken.  All  men 
have  certain  rights,  but  when  any  class  exercises  these 
rights,  (even  that  of  reading  the  Scriptures,  if  they 
claim  it),  in  such  a  way  as  to  infringe  on  the  rights  of 
others,  or  imperil  the  peace  of  the  community,  they  can- 
not complain,  if  society,  for  its  own  safety,  abridges 
these  rights  by  withdrawing  such  of  them  as  they  in- 
sist on  exercising  in  a  manner  detrimental  to  it  or  to 
those  whom  it  is  bound  to  protect  in  the  lawful  and 
orderly  exercise  of  their  rights.  It  is  possible  the  dis- 
turbances at  Toulouse  might  have  been  dealt  with  in  a 
more  gentle  and  tolerant  style.  But  this  point  is  one 
about  which  a  Catholic  need  feel  no  concern.  It  is 
enough  for  him  to  know  that  the  prohibition  in  ques- 
tion, so  far  from  affecting  the  Church  universal,  onlv 
applied  to  a  single  province  in  France,  and  even  there 
ceased  to  be  enforced  when  the  circumstances  which 
led  to  its  adoption  no  longer  existed.  This  remark  is 
also  applicable  to  the  action  taken  at  a  council  held  at 
Tarragona,  in  Spain,  in  the  year  1234,  when  the  reading 
of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular  was  also  forbidden 
for  similar  reasons.  But  it  was  not  until  the  fifteenth 
centur}',  that  any  decree  of  the  kind  was  published  in 
England,  and  then  only  as  a  means  of  suppressing  the 
dangerous  spirit  excited  by  Lollardism,  the  turbulent 
offspring  of  the  notorious  Wvckliffe.  The  year  1408,  in 
fact,  marks  the  earliest  date  at  which  any  action  was 
taken  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  England  with 
the  purpose  of  formally  forbidding  the  laity  lo  read 
unapproved  Xx?^x\<&\?i\\ovL^  of  the  Scripture.     In  that  vear  a 


494  ^/'^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

synod  was  convened  at  Oxford  under  the  presidency  of 
Thomas  Arundel,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  which 
the  version  infected  with  the  errors  of  Wyckliffe  was 
condemned,  and  it  was  further  decreed,  that  no  one 
should  in  future  without  license  translate  the  Scripture 
into  the  vernacular,  or  read  a  translation  in  the  vernac- 
ular, ''until,"  as  Labbe '  according  to  Ubaldi '  has  it, 
"  such  translation  shall  have  been  approved  b}'  the 
ordinary  of  the  place,  or,  if  it  be  necessary,  by  a  provin- 
cial council."  That  Arundel  himself  approved  the  read- 
ing of  the  Scriptures  by  the  laity,  provided  the  copy  was 
authentic,  appears  from  the  fact,  that  in  1394,  while 
preaching  a  funeral  oration  over  "  the  good  Queen  Ann  " 
of  Bohemia,  consort  of  Richard  IT.,  he  praised  her  for 
her  diligence  in  reading  the  four  Gospels  in  English. 

It  thus  appears  that  all  along  in  England  the  laity  had 
enjoyed  unrestricted  the  liberty  of  reading  the  Scrip- 
tures in  those  translations  which,  as  we  have  seen,  they 
always  had  at  hand.  And  it  is  certain  they  never  would 
have  been  denied  the  privilege,  had  it  not  been  that 
alread}'  spurious  Bibles,  intended  to  corrupt  their  faith, 
were  being  hawked  among  them,  unable  as  many  of  them 
were  to  distinguish  between  the  genuine  article  and  its 
many  counterfeits.  Indeed,  the  English  Catholics  still 
possess  and  exercise  the  right  of  reading  approved  tran- 
slations of  the  Bible,  as  their  fathers  did  before  them,  and 
will  to  the  end  of  time.  And  we  may  be  sure  that  all  in- 
telligent and  well  disposed  persons  among  the  latter  when 
they  understood  that  it  was  unlawful  to  read  versions 
issued  by  \V3xkliffe  and  his  followers,  treated  the  decree 
on  the  subject  with  profound  respect.  For  it  is  not  pre- 
tended that  Wyckliffe  was  a  great  saint  or  a  great  scholar. 
But  if  he  had  been  both,  no  man  in  his  senses  would  have 
said  then  or  would  say  now,  that  hisintepretation  of  the 
Bible    was    to    be    preferred    to    that    of   the    universal 

^  Tom.  xi.,  pag.  2095       -  luliod.  in  S.  Stripi.,  iii.,  462. 


The  Bible  not  prohibited  by  the  Chureli.  495 

Church.  Otherwise,  we  would  have  to  hold  tiiat  an  ex- 
position of  the  Civil  Constituti(jn  by  any  smart  lawyer 
might  be  of  more  weight  than  one  sanctioned  by  the 
entire  Judiciary. 

It  is  evident  that  the  regulations  made  regarding  the 
reading  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  councils  referred  to 
above,  were  adopted  under  very  exceptional  circum- 
stances, were  applied  to  particular  localities,  and  were 
intended  to  correct  what  were  considered  flagrant  evils 
by  all  except  a  comparatively  small  class  of  persons, 
with  whom  those  evils  originated,  or  by  whom  they 
were  encouraged.  So  far,  however,  the  Church  as  such 
had  declined  to  place  any  general  restriction  on  the 
reading  of  approved  versions  in  any  language  by  the 
laity,  or  to  take  any  action  implying  i-egret  that  she  had 
all  along  encouraged  the  practice.  Yet  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that,  had  she  believed  the  interests  of  Christen- 
dom required  it,  she  could  have  withheld  the  Scriptures 
in  any  form  from  the  laity.  They  can  claim  from  her 
only  what  is  necessary  to  save  their  souls,  ana  as  the 
reading  of  the  Scriptures  is  not  necessary  for  this  pur- 
pose, many  at  all  times  having  gone  to  heaven  without 
a  Bible,  and  many,  who  had  one  and  read  it,  having 
failed  to  reach  there,  the  lait}-  would  be  deprived  of 
nothing  that  they  are  entitled  to,  were  she  to  forbid 
them  the  reading  of  the  Divine  Word,  and  confine  herself 
to  its  exposition,  oral  teaching,  the  celebration  of  public 
worship,  and  the  administration  of  the  sacraments. 
Would  it  not  be  difficult  to  prove,  that  the  Apostles  did 
anything  more  than  this  for  the  salvation  of  the  laity  ? 
The  New  Testament  is  the  only  volume  which  they,  so 
far  as  we  know,  have  written,  and  several  among  them 
contributed  nothing  to  it.  But  neither  these  nor  the 
authors  of  the  volume  appear  to  have  considered  it  nec- 
essary to  leave  a  copy  of  it,  or  of  the  Old  Testament, 
with  each  of  their  converts.     In  fact,  without  a  miracle 


496  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

they  could  not  have  done  so,  and  nobody  supposes  that 
any  such  miracle  was  ever  wrought  by  them,  though 
miracles  were  plenty  enough  at  the  time.  The  Church, 
however,  never  withheld  from  the  laity  the  privilege  of 
reading  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  for  she  has  always 
believed  that,  when  not  abused,  the  exercise  of  the  privi- 
lege is  calculated  to  edify  and  enlighten  the  mind,  as 
well  as  to  promote  the  cause  of  virtue.  But  when 
Bibles  in  which  the  original  text  is  wilfully  corrupted, 
and  its  meaning  is  wilfully  perverted  for  sectarian  pur- 
poses, as  was  the  case  with  those  peddled  around  by  the 
Albigensians  in  France,  the  Lollards  in  England,  and 
the  Jews  in  Spain  '  as  well  as  the  Lutherans  in  Ger- 
many, the}'  are  to  be  classified  as  false  and  dangerous 
books.  And  an}^  pastor  of  souls  is  bound  to  forbid  the 
reading  of  them  by  his  flock.  Even  a  Protestant  minis- 
ter would  be  regarded  as  unfaithful  to  the  duties  for 
which  he  is  paid  by  his  employers,  were  he  to  allow 
what  he  considers  corrupt  copies  of  the  Scripture  to  be 
introduced  among  his  congregation.  And  it  is  well 
known  that  such  of  these  employers  as  insist  on  the 
reading  of  the  Bible  in  the  common  school  of  which 
they  happen  to  be  directors  (and  who  among  them  in 
such  a  position  does  not  include  this  juvenile  exercise  in 
the  curriculum  ?),  would  permit  the  teacher  to  substitute 
the  .  Douay  for  the  Jacobite  Bible,  even  though  the 
teacher  and  the  majority  of  the  pupils  might  prefer  the 
former.  In  acting  thus,  the  poor  man  invested  with  a 
little  brief  authority  believes  he  is  doing  right,  though 
he  dare  not  swear  to  it,  if  his  idea  of  an  oath  is  that  of 
most  Christians.  Yet  he  is  horrified  at  hearing  that 
this  or  that  priest  has  condemned  the  use  of  the  Prot- 
estant Bible  in  the  public  schools  ;  and  when  told  that 
the  priest,  who  fully  comprehends  the  nature  of  an  oath, 
is  prepared  to  swear  that  the  Protestant  Bible  cannot  be 

'   Balmes  Catholicity  and  Protestantism  Compared,  p.  215. 


The  Bible  not  proliibitcd  by  the  Church.  ^07 

read  wilhout  sin  by  a  Catliolic,  instead  ol  susi)cctin,-; 
that  he  himself  may  be  mistaken,  our  autocrat  of  the 
common  school  is  only  further  horrified  on  beinj^r  so  in- 
formed. 

But  it  could  not  well  be  otherwise  among  that  class 
of  the  Christian  laity  to  which  this  specimen  of  modern 
enlightenment  belongs,  inheriting  as  it  does  the  princi- 
ples and  traditions  of  the  Reformation,  and  taught  to  be- 
lieve that  its  Bible  is  the  best  book  that  was  ever  printed, 
and  the  truest  version  of  the  original  Scriptures  that 
was  ever  written,  if  not  an    actual  apograph  of   these 
Scriptures    or   the    very    autograph    of    their   inspired 
authors.     Many  of    those,   who  rank  as  leaders  of   this 
Christian  laity,  know  better,  for  they  are  cognizant  of 
all  the  facts  by  which  it  has  already  been  shown,'  that, 
while  that  version  abounds  in  wilful  perversions  of  the 
sacred  text,  and  of  gross  misconceptions  of  its  meanino-, 
"no   wilful   perversion  of   its    meaning    has    ever    been 
brought  home  "  to  those  who  wrote  the  Douay  Bible. 
Those  leaders  also  know,  what  most  of  their  followers 
appear  to  be  ignorant  of,  that  those  Pnjtestants,  whose 
zeal  is  only  equalled  by  their  wealth,  and  who,  persuaded 
that    the    reading   and  possession    of   the    Scripture    is 
indispensable   to  the  propagation   and   maintenance   of 
Christianity,    have  expended  millions    upon  millions  in 
distributing  the  Scriptures  all  over  the  world,  yet  have 
never  been  able  to  reach  an  agreement  regarding  the 
Bible  to  be  approved  for  the  use  of  the  heathen  abroad 
and  the  pagans  at  home.     Nevertheless  the  said  leaders 
are  as  ready  as  those  whom  they  guide,  to  frown  down, 
wherever  they  have  the  control,  any  attempt  to  substi- 
tute another  English  version  for  what  is  now  known  as 
King  James's  Bible,  or  to  dispense  with  the  latter  alto- 
gether in  public  institutions.     To  them,  as  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  their  followers,  there  is  nothing  in  heaven 

'  Chapters  xx.-xxiii. 


498  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

above,  or  on  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  waters  under 
the  earth,  equal  to  the  authorized  version.  So  they  say, 
and  so  they  write,  yet  knowing  all  the  while,  that  that 
version  bristles  with  blunders  and  corruptions,  some  few 
of  which,  for  shame's  sake,  a  recent  commission  tried  to 
remove,  but  current  editions  still  retain  ;  and  that  the 
Bible  societies  could  never  be  induced  to  unite  in  adopt- 
ing a  common  standard  copy  of  the  Scriptures  for  pro- 
moting the  object  of  their  organization — the  conversion 
of  the  entire  world  to  that  extremely  mutable  and  in- 
definable religious  system  implied  in  the  word  Protes- 
tantism. If  those  Bible  Societies  have,  as  Mr.  Marshall 
has  shown  in  his  incomparable  work  on  Christian  Mis- 
sions, been  a  good  deal  less  successful  in  the  salvation  of 
souls  than  in  the  expenditure  of  vast  sums,  and  the 
gratuitous  distribution  of  millions  of  Bibles  and  religious 
tracts  often  consigned  to  all  such  purposes  for  which 
waste  paper  is  useful,  they  have  at  least  been  quite  ser- 
viceable in  convincing  the  world,  that  Protestants  find  it 
as  difificult  to  agree  on  adopting  a  common  standard  of 
the  Bible  as  in  uniting  in  the  profession  of  a  common 
creed.  A  word  or  two  is,  therefore,  now  called  for  in 
reference  to  the  origin,  object,  and  operations  of  Bible 
Societies. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 


The  Bible  Societies  and  the  ArocRVPiiAL  War. 

It  was  not  until  near  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tnrv,  that  any  thing  was  done  by  English  Protestants  to 
shake  off  the  religious  lethargy  into  which  they  had 
sunk,  when  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  commotions  con- 
sequent on  the  Reformation  had  subsided.  About  that 
period  efforts  were  made  to  re-awaken  some  religious  feel- 
ing in  the  population,  great  numbers  of  which  were  prob- 
ably Christian  in  nothing  but  the  name.  Books  of  in- 
struction and  other  means,  including  the  circulation  of 
the  Scriptures,  were  employed  for  the  purpose,  with  the 
aid  and  under  the  direction  of  societies  which  the  cir- 
cumstances had  called  into  existence.  But  it  was  not 
until  1804,  that  what  was  then  called  and  is  still  known 
as  tJic  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  was  organized 
in  London,  for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  promoting 
the  circulation  of  the  Protestant  Bible  at  home  and 
abroad.  Auxiliary  societies  were  so(mi  formed  in  other 
parts  of  Great  Bi-itain.  And  in  a  short  time  similar  or- 
o-anizations,  with  numerous  branches,  were  established 
at  several  points  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  In  the 
United  States  the  first  Bible  Society  was  founded  in 
1808,  an  example  which  in  the  course  of  time  was  fol- 
lowed by  several  of  the  principal  cities  in  this  country. 
From  the  following  statistics  the  reader  may  form  an 
estimate  of  the  total  receipts  and  expenditures  of  these 
societies  since  their  organization.     But  if  he  wishes  to 


500  Ihc  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

know  what  has  been  accompUshed  by  them,  or  what  use 
is  generally  made  of  the  Bibles  and  religious  tracts 
which  they  dispose  of,  and  especiall}'  such  as  they  distrib- 
ute gratuitousl}',  he  will  have  to  consult  Mr.  Marshall's 
Christian  Missions,  a  work  by  James  Laird  Patterson,' or 
some  other  book  bv  a  disinterested  writer,  who  refers  to 
the  subject  even  only  incidentally. 

In  one  year,  for  example,  that  of  1874,  the  receipts  of 
the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  from  all  sources  were 
i^  217, 390, —  13s.  id. — something  more  than  a  million  dol- 
lars, its  disbursements  during  that  time  amounting  to 
about  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  less.  In  the  same 
year  there  were  issued  from  the  Society's  depots  at 
home  and  abroad  2,619,427  Bibles,  Testaments,  and  de- 
tached books  of  the  Bible.  The  number  of  such  publi- 
cations during  the  first  30  years  of  its  existence  was 
almost  74  millions,  involving  an  expenditure  of  about 
$  38,750,000.  The  receipts  of  the  American  Bible  Society 
during  the  3'ear  ending  May  1888  were  $  523,910.50,  the 
expenses  in  that  year  being  $499,998.75.  In  the  same 
year  there  were  1,274,036  copies  of  the  Scriptures 
printed  and  purchased  by  the  Society.  904, 1 79  volumes 
were  issued  from  the  Bible  house,  and  533,261  in  foreign 
lands,  making  a  total  of  1,437,440.  Of  these,  369,714  were 
Bibles;  598,515,  New  Testaments  ;  and  469,21 1,  portions  of 
the  Bible.  There  have  been  584,603  Bibles,  Testaments, 
and  portions  circulated  in  foreign  lands.  During  the 
seventy  years  in  which  the  American  Society  has  been 
in  existence  previous  to  1888,  its  issues  amount  to  46,877, 
646.  For  the  distribution  of  its  publications,  at  home 
and  abroad,  the  Societv  both  here  and  in  England 
employs  a  large  corps  of  agents,  preachers,  mission- 
aries, pedagogues,  colporteurs,  etc.,  in  whose  support,  as 
well  as  in  the  publication  and  transport  of  its  Bibles, 

'   Journal  of  a    Tour  in  Egypt,  Palestine,  Syria,  and  Gieece.     The  tourist 
left  Enghind  a  Puseyite.  and  returned  a  Catholic. 


Operations  of  iJic  Bible  Societies.  501 

Testaments,  and  religious  tracts,  its  revenue  is  expended, 
which  revenue  is  derived  from  the  sale  of  its  issues, 
from  the  contributions  of  its  members,  from  collections 
among  Protestant  congregations,  and  from  numennis 
bequests  ;  while  the  enthusiastic  patrons,  instead  of  ex- 
pressing surprise  at  the  little  that  has  been  done  with  so 
much  money,  still  cherish  the  hope  that  the  millennium  is 
at  hand,  and  the  whole  world  about  to  be  converted  to 
what  they  understand  by  the  Religion  of  the  Bible.  Both 
having  the  same  object  in  view,  and  employing  generally 
the  same  means  to  obtain  it,  there  may  have  been  a  bond, 
of  sympathy  between  i\\Q  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Soeiety 
and  the  Ameriean  Bible  5^r/V/j',  but  apparently  none  what- 
ever between  these  two  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Amer- 
iean and  Foreign  Bible  Soeiety  on  the  other,  though  its  ob- 
ject is  the  same  as  theirs.  It  owes  its  origin  to  a  seces- 
sion of  the  Baptists  from  the  American  Bible  Society, 
and  was  estabHshed  in  1837,  but  had  its  own  ranks 
thinned  by  a  secession  in  1850,  when  a  number  of  mem- 
bers withdrew  and  organized  the  Ameriean  Bible  Union. 
This  comprised  mainly  Baptists,  having  members  not 
only  in  many  parts  of  the  United  States,  but  in  Canada, 
Great  Britain,  and  generally  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken.  The  receipts,  and  of  course  the  ex- 
penditures, as  well  as  the  operations  of  these  two  socie- 
ties, which  originated  in  a  secession,  have  fallen  far  short 
of  the  astounding  figures  reached  hy  the  British  and  For- 
eign Bible  Soeiety  and  the  Ameriean  Bible  Society.  The 
cause  of  this  disunion  among  brethren  will  be  explained 
further  on.  Here  it  may  be  remarked,  that  if  one  were 
to  express  correctly  the  feeling  existing  between  the  two 
former  societies,  or  between  them  and  the  two  latter,  he 
would  probablv  have  to  select  a  much  sti-onger  word 
than  emulation. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that,  when 
the  first  Bible  Societv   was  formed  in   Knirland   f(^r  the 


502  TJie  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

sole  purpose  of  circulating  at  home  the  authorized  ver- 
sion of  the  Scriptures  in  the  languages  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  abroad  the  best  ancient  and  received 
versions,  or,  when  it  is  necessar\^  and  practicable,  new 
translations  from  the  Hebrew  and  Greek,  the  project  was 
universally  approved  by  Protestants.  For  it  failed  to 
receive  the  sanction  of  several  Anglican  bishops  and 
ministers,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Marsh,. 
Bishop  of  Peterborough.  These,  dreading  the  effect 
which  association  with  dissenters  would  produce  on 
members  of  the  Establishment,  condemned  the  funda- 
mental law  of  the  Society,  according  to  wdiich  its  Bibles 
were  to  be  published  without  note  or  comment,  and,  be- 
sides, insisted  that  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  should 
be  given  along  with  the  Bible.  Many  also  complained 
of  the  serious  errors  said  to  have  been  made  in  several 
of  the  translations.  The  rigorists  also  demanded  that 
all  who  deny  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  should  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  society,  and  this,  being  refused,  led  to 
the  formation  of  what  is  known  as  TJie  Trinitarian  So- 
ciety, whose  held  of  operations  has  been  comparatively 
limited.  In  fact,  the  Protestant  Bible  Society  has  exhib- 
ited the  same  tendency  to  divide  and  subdivide  which 
has  been  a  characteristic  of  the  Protestant  religion 
throughout  its  entire  histor\'.  The  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society  also  met  with  decided  opposition  among 
some  leading  Protestants  in  Germany.  Bretschneider, 
superior  councillor  of  the  consistory,  and  other  Protes- 
tant divines  condemned  its  methods.  But,  strange  to  say 
while  the  Society  in  England  and  on  the  Continent  had 
to  contend  with  the  opposition  offered  by  members  of 
the  Protestant  ministry,  it  received  what  to  it  must  have 
been  unexpected  encouragement  from  a  few  Catholics  in 
Germany,  among  whom  Leander  Van  Ess,  a  professor 
in  the  university  of  Marburg,  w^here  he  was  also  parish 
priest,  attained  rather  unenviable  notoriety  by  the  views 


operations  of  the  Bible  Societies.  503 

which  he  published  on  the  subject.  But.  these  views,  as 
well  as  the  arguments  by  which  he  endeavored  to  con- 
firm them,  were  condemned  and  refuted  by  Binterim 
Kistemacher  and  other  learned  Catholic  writers  among 
his  own  countrymen.  As  a  reward  for  his  services  to 
them,  even  the  friends  of  the  Bible  Society  in  the  end  re- 
ferred to  him  in  language  savoring  much  more  of  dis- 
pleasure and  censure  than  of  gratitude  and  admiration.  ' 

In  the  account  so  far  given  of  the  Bible  Societies,  a 
Catholic  will  perceive  that  they  early  exhibited  symp- 
toms which  called  forth  the  interference  of  the  Supreme 
Pastor.  That  interference  was  never  withheld  on  anv 
occasion  when  there  was  reason  to  apprehend  danger  to 
the  faith  from  that  quarter.  Thus  these  societies  were 
condemned  by  Pius  VII.,  in  a  Brief  dated  29  June  1816 
and  addressed  to  the  Bishop  of  Gnesen;  and  condemned 
a  second  time  by  the  same  Pontiff  on  September  3d  of 
the  same  year,  in  another  Brief  addressed  to  the  Bishop 
of  Mohilew.  The  condemnation  was  renewed  by  Leo 
XII.,  in  an  Encyclical  of  May  3,  1824,  and  renewed 
again  in  an  Encyclical  by  Pius  VIII.,  dated  May  24,  1829. 
Gregorv  XVI  issued  a  similar  condemnation  in  an  En- 
cyclical dated  May  8,  1844;  and  on  November  9,  1846, 
Pius  IX.  reiterated  the  condemnation  pronoimced  h\ 
so  many  of  his  predecessors.  We  shall  see,  as  we  proceed, 
that  besides  those  dangerous  tendencies  of  the  Bible 
Societies  which  the  preceding  remarks  have  brought  to 
view,  there  were  others  exhibited  by  those  associations 
so  opposed  to  the  integrity  of  the  Sacred  Scripture  and 
the  purity  of  divine  faith,  as  to  compel  the  sternest  de- 
nunciation from  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  Church. 

We  have  seen  already,  while  enumerating  the  French, 
Spanish,  and  Portuguese  Catholic  versions,  which  were 
published  under  the  auspices  of  the  Bible  Societies  in 

I  Vide  Morrison's  "  Preface  to  New  Edition  of  Alexander's  Canon  of  Script.,'" 

p.    XV. 


504  flic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

the  United  States,  that  all  the  notes  and  comments  be- 
longing to  those  versions  were  omitted.  Wiecki's  Po- 
lish Catholic  version,  as  well  as  the  others,  was  treated 
in  the  same  way  in  Europe  according  to  Ubaldi,  '  who 
remarks  further,  that  in  all  the  editions  of  Catholic  ver- 
sions which  were  issued  by  the  Bible  Societies  the  deu- 
tero  books  were  excluded  from  the  Old  Testament,  the 
object,  of  course,  being  to  persuade  Catholics,  among 
whom  the  agents  of  the  Societies  scattered  their  vitiated 
Bibles,  that  each  reader  had  the  right  to  interpret  the 
sacred  text  as  he  pleased,  and  was  not  to  consider  the 
deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  parts  of  the  inspired 
volume.  This  of  itself  fully  warranted  the  condemna- 
tion of  the  Hoi}'  See.  These  misguided  zealots  would 
have  informed  any  one  about  to  learn  a  trade  or  a  pro- 
fession, that,  besides  the  tools  the  use  of  which  he  had 
to  learn,  or  the  books  the  contents  of  which  he  had  to 
read,  he  also  required  an  instructor.  But  in  the  matter 
of  religion,  the  most  difficult  as  well  as  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all  pursuits,  they  acted  on  the  erroneous  assump- 
tion that  no  instructor  was  necessary.  There  was  the 
Bible,  not  by  an}-  means  a  full,  clear,  and  methodical  trea- 
tise on  the  science  of  religion,  and  still  less  so  as  the  Bi- 
ble Societies  made  it.  But  according  to  them,  to  be  a 
full-fledged  Christian,  a  man  had  nothing  to  do  but  read 
it! 

Besides,  whether  it  was  that  the  scholars  the}-  em- 
ployed for  the  purpose  were  incompetent  or  dishonest, 
the  translations  which  were  made  by  order  of  the  So- 
cieties were,  as  many  Protestants  have  admitted,  some 
of  them  inaccurate:  but  not  onlv  that,  they  were  often 
ludicrous,  and  in  some  instances  so  repugnant  to  Chris- 
tian feeling,  that  they  might  well  be  characterized  blas- 
phemous. This  last  remark  is  fuUv  justified  by  the  ex- 
tracts which   a  contributor  to  the  Dublin  Rcvieic  '^  has 

'   IiilroJ.  ill  S.  Scrip.,  III.,  4SS.  '  Vol.  XLL.,  article  v. 


operations  of  tJic  Bible  Societies.  505 

made  from  these  translations.  lUit  how  couhl  it  liavc 
been  otherwise,  when  men  claiming  to  be  the  cream  of 
Christendom  scrupled  not  to  circulate  as  the  Word  of 
God  translations  made  after  the  following  method,  a 
method,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  employed  in  other 
countries  besides  that  in  which  it  is  stated  to  have  been 
actually  made  use  of.  In  India,  when  it  is  proposed  by 
the  Baptists  to  translate  the  Scriptures  into  the  various 
languages  of  that  country,  several  Pandits,  or  men  con- 
versant with  these  languages,  are  assembled  in  the  hall 
of  the  establishment  belonging  to  the  missionaries  of 
Singapore.  There  the  Pandits  are  placed  in  a  circle, 
the  centre  of  which  is  occupied  by  a  Pandit  versed  in 
Hindostanee,  a  language,  with  which  the  others  are  su]3- 
posed  to  be  familiar,  and  in  English,  of  which  the  Pandit 
himself  ought  to  have  a  profound  knowledge.  As  soon 
as  the  Mahratta,  Seikh,  Guzarat,  Orissa,  Burmah,  etc.. 
Pandits  have  prepared  their  writing  materials,  a  mis- 
sionary, or  anv  other  European  or  Anglo-Asiatic,  reads 
word  b}'  word  a  verse  in  the  English  text,  and  the  verse 
thus  read  word  by  word  is  repeated  word  by  woi'd  in 
Hindostanee  bv  the  Pandit  in  the  centre,  and  as  he  does 
so,  the  other  Pandits  around  him  put  it  down  word  by 
word,  each  in  his  own  language  or  particular  dialect; 
and  in  this  way  the  translation  is  completed.  ' 

The  Bible  Societies  exultingh'  boast  that  they  have 
translated  the  Scriptures  into  more  than  two  hundred 
languages  and  dialects.  But  there  is  nothing  in  this  to 
be  proud  of  or  to  boast  about,  rather  much,  ver}-  much, 
to  inspire  with  shame  and  confusion  all  who  have  in  any 
way  contributed  to  such  outrages  on  God's  holv  word. 
Besides,  the  patrons  of  these  Societies  have  good  reason 
to  ask  why,  when  such  a  handy  way  of  translating  the 
Bible  has  been  invented,  there  is  not  already,  after  eighty- 
four  years  of  unremitting  effort  and  lavish  expenditure, 

1  Comely.  Infrod.  in  S.  ScnfL,  I  .  495. 


5o6  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament. 

a  version  of  the  Scripture  in  every  language,  dialect,  id- 
iom, and  jargon  now  spoken  bv  mankind?  But  serious- 
ly, can  the  reader  look  for  an}^  other  result  than  that 
many  of  the  translations  prepared  by  the  Bible  Societies 
are  calculated  to  provoke  ridicule  among  people  of 
common  sense,  and  indignation  among  those  who  duly 
revere  the  Divine  Scriptures,  at  the  manner  in  which 
the  Bible  has  been  burlesqued  so  long  and  so  often  in 
recent  times  by  its  pi^ofessed  friends ;  and  not  only  bur- 
lesqued b}'  tliese  friends,  but  exposed  by  them  still  to 
profanation  at  the  hands  of  the  heathen,  a  charge  long 
ago  brought  and  proved  against  them  by  Mr.  Marshall.  ' 
For  at  this  writing  it  is  stated  in  the  New  York  press  ' 
that  "  In  many  parts  of  China,  the  Bibles  given  by  the 
missionaries  are  used  in  the  manufacture  of  cheap  boot 
soles."  Their  history  proves  that  our  dissenting  brethren 
have  never  been  able  to  agree  in  professing  a  common 
symbol  of  belief.  That  histor}'  also  demonstrates,  that 
they  are  as  incapable  of  uniting  in  the  acceptance  of  a 
common  Bible.  For  most  of  the  schisms,  which  divided 
into  opposing  sections  the  associations  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  disseminating  the  Scriptures,  originated  in  a 
difference  of  views  regarding  the  Bible  which  was  to  be 
adopted  as  a  standard.  In  fact,  it  was  for  this  reason 
that  the  Baptists,  for  instance,  as  we  have  seen,  separated 
from  the  primitive  organization  and  established  what 
they  named  "  The  American  and  Foreign  Bible  Socie- 
ty." In  this  case  the  parent  society,  called  "  The  Amer- 
ican Bible  Society,"  had  refused  aid  to  the  Bengalee 
and  Burmese  versions,  because  its  Baptist  members, 
desiring  to  have  these  versions  consistent  with  Baptist 
principles,  had  translated  baptize  by  a  word  representing 
immerse.  A  secession  by  the  Baptists  followed,  they 
very  justly  supposing,  that  they  had  as  good  a  right  to 

'    Christian  Missions. 

'    Tribune,  of  18S9,  cited  by  Erie  Herald.^  May  24,  1889. 


operations  of  the  Bible  Soeieties.  507 

thus  inoculate  with  their  principles  the  natives  of  India, 
as  King  James's  translators  had  to  inoculate  in  the  same 
way  the  people  of  Great  Britain  with  their  own  com- 
promised opinions.  Not  long  ago  the  latter  ti-anslatioii 
was,  as  we  know,  revised  by  committees  of  English  and 
American  scholars  determined  to  adhere  to  it  as  an 
English  standard  copy  of  the  Scriptures.  So  the  strenu- 
ous leaders  of  the  Baptist  persuasion,  believing  that 
the}',  too,  should  have  a  revision  of  the  English  Protes- 
tant Bible,  actually  undertook  one.  Indeed,  the  work 
is  already  far  advanced,  and  when  completed  will  no 
doubt  differ  veiy  essentially  from  the  copy  wiiich  most 
other  Protestants  follow  as  a  ride  of  belief.  The  quar- 
rel is  an  unseemly  one,  bvit  it  had  and  will  have  the  ef- 
fect of  stimulating  the  brethren  on  both  sides  to  greater 
efforts  in  supplying  the  home  and  the  foreign  market 
Avith  a  greater  variety  and  a  more  abundant  supply  of 
Bibles.  It  also  emphasized  the  fact,  that  the  descend- 
ants of  the  reformers  are  not  more  divided  about  a  creed 
than  they  are  about  a  Bible.  The  unpleasant  episode 
connected  with  the  Baptist  Bible  was  but  the  result  of 
a  principle  which  had  already  led  to  a  far  more  serious 
controversy  among  the  friends  of  the  Bible  in  Europe, 
and  proved  that,  in  the  Old  World  as  well  as  the  New, 
these  friends  found  it  impossible  to  agree  on  the  selec- 
tion of  any  particular  Bible,  whether  for  their  own  use 
or  that  of  the  heathen. 

At  the  time  that  the  British  Bible  Society  undertook 
to  provide  all  mankind  with  copies  of  what  it  considered 
the  pure  word  of  God,  Protestant  Bibles,  particularly 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  generally  contained  the 
deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  under  the  name  of 
Apocrvpha,and  inserted,  though  not  invariably,  between 
the  Old  and  New  Testament.  For  they  were  tt^  be 
found  sometimes  intermingled  with  the  others,  as  they 
are  now  and  ever  have   been   in   Catholic   Bibles.     Xo 


5o8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

doubt,  many  English  Protestant  Bibles  in  the  beginning 
of  the  present  centur}-  contained  those  books.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  even  at  this  time  they 
have  entirely  disappeared,  though  the}'  have  ceased  to 
be  printed.  A  place  was  assigned  them  under  the  title 
of  Apocrypha  in  all  the  early  English  Protestant  versions 
at  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  Matthew's  Bible 
and  Cranmer's  they  were  even  called  Hagiographa, 
but  as  Apocrypha  they  passed  into  King  James's  version, 
and  were  generall}'  included  in  all  the  Protestant  Bibles 
printed  in  England,  at  least  until  about  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  centur}-.  In  fact,  several  of  these  books  are, 
so  used  in  her  public  services  bv  the  Anglican  Church, 
as  to  show  that,  whatever  mav  be  her  theory  regarding 
them,  practically  she  recognizes  no  distinction  between 
them  and  the  rest.  ^  But  among  the  English  dissenters 
the  books  in  question,  even  if  found  there,  were  treated 
with  no  consideration.  Continental  Protestantism,  how- 
ever, excelled  even  conservative  Anglicanism  in  the 
favorable,  even  reverential  view,  with  which  it  regarded 
those  books.  It  is  true,  Luther  and  his  associates  treated 
them  as  unscriptural,  relegating  them  as  Apocrvpha  to 
the  end  of  his  Old  Testament.  He  endeavored  at  the 
same  time  to  excite  suspicion  or  contempt  against  sev- 
eral proto  books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  deutero  in 
the  New.  But  his  arbitrary  proceeding  in  the  former 
case  was  hardly  less  offensive,  even  to  Lutherans,  than 
his  equally  arbitrary  proceeding  in  the  latter  case.  Thus 
among  Lutherans  and  all  other  sects  on  the  continent 
the  New  Testament  remained  as  Luther  found  it  in  the 
Church,  and  the  same  remark,  if  the  common  practice 
outside  of  Great  Britain  be  meant,  is  applicable  to  the 
Old  Testament.  For  the  Continental  Protestants  had, 
all  of  them,  the  deutero  books  in  their  Old  Testament. 
And  though  these  books  may  there  still  bear  the  brand 

'   Vide  Kitto's  Cyclop.,  I.,  pp.  522.  557;  II.,  pp.  186,  S76. 


operations  of  the  Bible  Societies.  509 

o{  Apocrypha  witli  which  [.uthcr  had  stamped  them,  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  the  common  people  particularly, 
finding  them  in  the  volume  which  they  called  the  Bible, 
received  them  as  part  of  it.  and  therefore  as  sacred  or 
canonical  scripture. 

But  whether  this  be  generally  so  now  or  not,  Karl 
Hildebrand  Canstein,  an  earnest  Protestant,  who  died  at 
Berlin,  in  17 19,  after  founding  in  Halle  a  Bible  Society 
long-  belore  such  an  institution  was  thought  of  in  England, 
actuall}-  mixed  in  the  German  and  Bohemian  Bibles, 
which  he  published  at  a  very  low  price  for  the  conven- 
ience of  the  people,  the  deutero  among  the  proto  books 
of  the  Old  Testament,  as  if  he  did  not  himself  believe 
and  did  not  wish  anv  one  else  to  believe,  that  there  was 
any  difference  whatever  between  the  two  classes  of 
books.  The  enterprise  which  he  started  has  been,  it  is 
understood,  continued  to  the  present  time.  And  it  was 
the  Bible  which  he  was  the  first  to  issue  that  the  Ger- 
man societies  afftliated  to  "  The  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society  "  purchased  for  circulation.  Thus,  with- 
out anv  objection  on  the  part  of  the  Society  at  London, 
where  probably  the  matter  was  regarded  as  unimportant, 
the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  included 
in  the  Bibles  distributed  throughout  Germany.  A 
knowledge  of  this  fact,  however,  seems  to  have  excited 
intense  feeling  in  Scotland,  and  the  central  authority  in 
consequence  addressed,  in  181 1,  a  request  to  the  auxil- 
iary branches,  advising  them  to  exclude  the  deutero 
books  from  their  Bibles.  But  this  action  gave  so  much 
offense  to  those  affected  by  it,  that  it  was  soon  cancelled. 
This  vacillating  policy  of  the  parent  society  only  served 
to  inflame  both  factions  more  and  more,  without  satisfy- 
ing either,  and  led  soon  after  to  that  protracted  and 
bitter  struggle  between  the  combatants,  which  was 
known  at  the  time  as  the  apocryphal  war.  On  one  side 
it  was  alleged  that  the  books  in  question  had  been  trans- 


5IO  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Test  anient. 

lated  by  Protestant  divines,  and  even  appointed  by  the 
Anglican  establishment  to  be  read  in  the  churches.  On 
the  other  it  was  afifirmed  that  those  books  were  not 
inspired,  a  fact  demonstrated  bv  their  contents,  and 
consequently  did  not  belong  to  the  canon.  To  this 
it  was  replied  that  the  catalogue  of  so-called  canonical 
books  was  not  itself  inspired  nor  an  article  of  faith,  and 
that  the  verv  same  objections  urged  against  thedeutero 
books  could  be  turned  against  many  of  the  others. 

Convocation  maintained  a  discreet  and  dignified 
silence  during  the  long  and  bitter  contest  between  the 
Lutheran  Consistory  and  the  Scotch  Kirk.  The  deutero 
books  being  generally-  defended  bv  representatives  of 
the  former,  and  opposed  by  champions  of  the  latter. 
That  contest  was  commenced  in  1811,  and  was  conducted 
with  such  obstinacy  on  the  part  of  the  defenders,  and  so 
much  violence  b}-  the  assailants,  that  disinterested  spec- 
tators must  have  supposed,  that  both  belligerent  part- 
ies believed,  that  life,  libert}-,  and  independence,  all  that 
is  dear  in  this  world  or  precious  in  the  next,  was  staked 
on  the  issue.  But  they  were  simply  engaged  in  manu- 
facturing conclusive  testimon}'  in  order  to  prove  to  intel- 
ligent people  that  for  Protestants  to  agree  in  saying  what 
constitutes  the  Bible,  is  a  sheer  impossibility.  It  was  also 
learned  that  for  a  while  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese 
Bibles  containing  the  detested  books  were  published 
with  the  permission  and  even  assistance  of  the  central 
Society.  This  was  more  than  the  Scotch  element  coidd 
stand,  and  a  serious  rupture  seemed  inevitable.  To 
prevent  such  a  calamitv,  it  was  decided  that  the  funds 
of  the  society  should  be  expended  onh^  in  the  publication 
of  Bibles  in  which  the  disputed  books  were  omitted,  and 
that,  if  the  branch  societies  published  those  books,  the}' 
should  do  so  at  their  own  expense.  The  course  of  affairs 
had  been  for  some  time  unfavorable  to  the  plans  of  Van 
Ess,  but  this   last  blow  was  likely  to  upset  them  alto 


Operatiotis  of  fhc  Bible  Societies.  5  1  \ 

g-ether.  However,  he  proposed  to  the  society,  tliat  lie 
would  continue  to  pul)lish  his  Bible,  provided  he  re- 
ceived assistance,  and  woidd  include  in  it  the  deutero 
books  at  his  own  expense.  On  these  conditions  he  ac- 
tually succeeded  in  obtaining  a  grant  of  ^,'500  in  i<S24. 
Before  he  received  the  amount,  however,  the  antiai)oc- 
ryphalists  of  Scotland  issued  a  strenuous  protest  against 
such  use  of  the  Society's  funds.  The  result  was,  that 
the  act  making  an  appropriation  in  favor  of  Van  Ess's 
Bible  was  cancelled,  and  an  acrimoneous  controvers}'  of 
several  years  followed,  the  stern  Scotch  insisting  that 
the  insertion  of  the  Apocrypha  at  the  end  of  the  Old 
Testament,  or  an}- where  in  the  Bible,  even  if  done 
without  any  expense  to  the  Society,  was  an  intolerable 
profanation  of  the  good  book.  Such  eminent  scholars 
as  Bretschneider,  already  mentioned,  Ersch,  the  cyclo- 
pedist,  and  Gruber,  professor  in  the  University  of  Malle, 
protested  against  the  elimination  of  the  Apocrypha. 
The  Bible  Societies  at  Paris,  Saltzburg,  Berlin,  Stock- 
holm, and  Petersburgh  appealed  to  their  brethren  in 
Great  Britain  for  the  same  purpose.  In  vain,  however; 
for  in  1827  it  was  decided  b)'  the  London  vSociety,  that 
no  association  or  individual  engaged  in  circulating  the 
apocrypha  should  receive  assistance  from  the  society; 
that  in  order  to  prevent  these  books  from  being  bound 
with  the  others,  none  but  books  already  bound  should 
be  given  to  the  branch  societies;  that  these  books  should 
be  distributed  as  received  ;  and  that  societies  printing 
the  apocryphal  books  should  place  the  amount  granted 
them  for  bibles  at  the  disposal  of  the  central  society. 
That  decision,  forced  on  the  acceptance  of  the  Bible  So- 
cieties bv  an  intolerant  and  fanatical  faction,  remains  to 
this  day  as  firm  and  binding  on  these  organizations,  as  if 
it  had  emanated  from  a  professedly  infallible  tribunal. 

It  is  evident  bv  this  time  that  there  is  a  marked  dilTer- 
ence,  not  only  between  the  Catholic  Bible  and  the  Prnt. 


512  The  Caiwn  of  t lie  Old  Testatiieiit. 

estant  Bible,  but  between  the  ti"eatment  which  the 
former  receives  among  Catholics,  and  that  which  the 
latter  experiences  among  Protestants.  The  Catholic 
Bible,  besides  having  a  text  exempt  from  intentional  cor- 
ruptions, is  complete.  For  we  have  seen,  that,  while  no 
fault  can  be  found  with  its  New  Testament,  its  Old 
Testament  comprises  the  same  books  which  it  had  when 
transferred  from  the  Jewish  to  the  Christian  Church — 
the  same  books,  too,  which  are  still  revered  as  divine  by 
the  schismatical  Greek  Church  as  well  as  among  those 
old  oriental  sects,  whose  founders,  long  ages  ago,  when 
they  separated  from  the  centre  of  Christian  Unity, 
transmitted  to  their  descendants  the  collection  of  in- 
spired writings,  which  the}'  themselves  had  received  on 
their  conversion  from  paganism:  whereas  several  of  these 
books  have  been  excluded  from  the  canon  by  those 
western  sects,  which  can  trace  their  origin  no  farther 
back  than  .the  sixteenth  century.  The  canon  of  all  Prot- 
estant denominations  is,  therefore,  a  comparatively  mod- 
ern invention,  which,  as  a  doctrine,  those  who  believe  it 
dare  not  pronounce  divine,  or  place  in  the  same  rank 
with  those  fimdamental  principles  which  they  accept  as 
articles  of  faith.  i\nd  though  the  Protestant  canon  pro- 
fesses to  be  identical  with  the  existing  Jewish  canon,  and 
actually  is  so,  so  far  as  the  Old  Testament  is  concerned, 
it  is  essentially  different  from  that  canon  as  it  stood  at 
the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era.  Of  this  fact 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  resting  as  it  does  on  the  testi- 
mon}^  of  not  only  early  Christian  writers,  but  ancient 
Rabbinical  doctors  who  lived  wnthin  the  Christian  pe- 
riod. As  to  the  treatment  which  each  Bible  receives  from 
its  patrons,  ever}'  one  knows  that,  while  the  Protestant 
denominations  scatter  copies  of  theirs  indiscriminately 
everywhere  and  among  all  classes,  the  Christian  and  the 
heathen,  the  old  and  the  young,  the  good  and  the  bad, 
the  ignorant  as  well  as  the  learned, — the  Church,  in  dis- 


The  Bible  not  prohibited  by  the  Church.  5 1 3 

seminating  the  Scriptures,  is   guided  by    certain    well- 
known  rules  not  arbitrarily  prescribed,  but  dictated  as 
well  by  the  character  of  the  Scriptures  themselves  as  by 
the  dispositions  of  those  who  are  able  to  read  them. 
The  Scriptures  being  divine  arc  holy,  and  are  therefore 
to  be  treated  as  such,  indeed,  in  a  way  entirely  different 
from  that  in  which  the  most  valuable  human  composi- 
tions are  handled  and  perused.     When  and  where  they 
are  likely  to  be  treated  as  other  than  sacred,  or  to  become 
not  a  blessing,  but  a  curse  to  the  reader— a  contingency 
not  by  any  means  rare,  as  we  shall  see  immediately— 
the   Church,    out   of   respect   as  well  for   their   divine 
character  as  for  the  spiritual  interests  of  those  who  may 
abuse  them,  withholds  them  until  the  danger  of  desecra- 
tion has  passed.     The  bearing  of  the  Church  towards 
the  sacred  Scriptures  is  that  of  Moses,  as  he  stood  un- 
shodden  before  the  burning  bush.     But  the  bearing  of 
our   dissenting    brethren    towards   their  poor  Bible  re- 
minds one  of  the  feelings,  with  which  the  discomfited 
ancients   of    Israel   and   the  sacrilegious  sons  of   Heli, 
dragged  the  ark  of  the  covenant  into  the  field  of  battle. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 


Effects  produced  by  the  indiscriminate  reading 
OF  THE  Protestant  Bible. — Catholics  encour- 
aged TO  read  faithful  versions  of-  the  Script- 
ures IN  VERNACULAR   LANGUAGES. 

In  dealing  with  Protestants,  with  those  facts  just  stated 
before  them,  no  Catholic  can  be  expected  to  offer  an 
apology  for  the  action  taken  by  the  Congregation  of  the 
Index  at  Rome,  after  the  Council  of  Trent  had  closed 
its  sessions.  A  plain  statement  of  the  case  is  sufficient. 
The  Congregation  of  the  Index  was  instituted  by  the 
Tridentine  Council,  and  was  composed  of  ecclesiastics 
selected  from  several  countries  on  account  of  their 
learning  and  experience.  It  drew  up,  as  directed,  an  In- 
dex, or  catalogue  of  prohibited  books,  affixing  thereto 
ten  rules,  and  Pius  IV.  confirmed  its  proceedings  in  a 
Constitution  dated  May  24,  1564.  The  fourth  rule 
which  the  Congregation  adopted  refers  to  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  thus  :  "  Since  experience 
has  made  it  manifest  that  the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  the 
vulgar  tongue,  if  it  is  permitted  to  all  indiscriminately, 
causes  through  the  temerity  of  men  more  detriment 
than  utility,  let  the  judgment  of  the  bishop  or  the  inqui- 
sitor be  followed  in  this  matter,  who,  with  the  advice 
of  the  parish-priest  or  confessor,  can  permit  the  reading 
of  those  versions  in  the  vulgar  tongue  that  have  been 
made  by  Catholic  authors,  to  those  whom  they  shall 
know  to  be  fit  to  derive  from  this  reading,  not  detri- 
ment, but  an   increase  of  faith  and  piety — ^nd  let  this 


Effects  of  Indiscrivn)iati-  Bible  Reddi/ig.  5  i  5 

permission  be  in  writing-. "'  The  observance  of  these 
rules  was  strictly  insisted  on  by  several  Pontiffs  subse- 
quently. And  in  a  decree  by  the  Congregation  of  the 
Index,  dated  June  13,  1757,  during  the  pontificate  of  Ben- 
edict XIV.,  it  was  further  enacted  that,  "  These  versions 
of  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue  are  permitted,  when 
they  have  been  approved  of  by  the  Holy  See,  or  are 
published  with  notes  drawn  from  the  Holy  Fathers,  or 
from  learned  Catholic  writers."  The  rule  of  the  Index, 
however,  which  the  character  of  the  times  rendered  im- 
peratively necessary-,  was  not  everywhere  enforced  in 
all  its  details.  And  nothing  more  is  insisted  on  at  pres- 
ent, than  that  a  version  should  have  the  approbation  of 
the  bishop  of  the  place  where  it  is  published,  and  be 
illustrated  by  notes  or  comments  from  the  Fathers  and 
other  competent  Catholic  writers. 

The  reader  will  observe,  that  the  cause  assigned  for 
the  restriction  imposed  on  the  indiscriminate  writing 
as  well  as  reading  of  versions  in  the  vernacular  lang- 
uages of  the  time,  was  that  experience  had  shown  that 
such  a  practice  had  done  more  evil  than  good.  But 
was  it  reallv  so?  No  one  can  doubt  it  who  examines 
the  testimony  even  of  the  men  who  were  the  first  to 
deluge  European  society  with  a  flood  of  unauthorized 
versions  of  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongues,  or  applauded 
those  who  did  so.  Fortunately,  that  testimony  has  been 
preserved,  in  most  instances,  bv  Catholic  writers,  who 
undertook  to  describe  the  progress  and  effects  of  the 
Reformation,  and  stands  uncontradicted  to  the  present 
dav.  Among  these  writers  may  be  named  the  late 
Archbishop  Spalding,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  a 
History  of  the  Reformation  ;  M.  Audin,  the  author  of  a 
Life  of  Luther,  as  well  as  a  Life  of  Calvin  ;  Dr.  Milner, 
who  has  written  the  well-known  work  on  The  End  of  Con- 
troversy; DoUinger,  who  published  at  Ratisbon,  in  1846- 
48,  three  volumes  on  The  Reformation,  its  interior  Develop- 


5i6  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

inent  and  its  Effects.  Most  of  these  works,  or  others  on 
the  same  subject,  being  accessible  to  the  general  reader, 
it  is  unnecessary  to  place  them  under  contribution  here. 
But  no  one  can  peruse  the  details  which  have  been 
copied  into  them  from  the  writings  of  the  reformers 
and  their  friends,  without  being  convinced  that  for  a 
long  time  after  the  Bible,  in  the  form  given  it  by  those 
men,  was  let  loose  on  Germany  and  England,  the  former 
country  was  a  perfect  pandemonium,  and  the  latter  little 
better  than  a  Bedlam — men  and  women  running  around 
stark  mad  or  stark  naked.  Kings  of  Sion,  Messiahs  and 
Mothers  '  of  Messiahs,   libertines,   scoundrels,  despera- 

1  As  an  instance  of  the  preposterous  folly  exhibited  by  those  blasphemous 
fanatics  and  their  deluded  followers  down  to  nearly  our  own  times,  may  be 
mentioned  the  case  of  the  Englishwoman,  Joanna  Southcott.  She  was  a  do- 
mestic servant  and  a  member  of  the  Established  Church,  having  been  born 
about  1750.  In  the  course  of  time,  she  joined  the  Methodist  movement,  be- 
came a  prophetess,  and  professed  to  be  the  woman  spoken  of  in  the  twelfth 
chapter  of  the  Apocalypse.  As  such,  though  quite  illiterate,  she  scribbled  or 
chctated  a  large  amount  of  incoherent  sayings,  and  carried  on  a  profitable  bus- 
iness in  the  sale  of  seals,  by  the  purchase  of  which  heaven  could  be  secured  on 
certain  conditions.  These  passports  to  heaven  were  signed  in  her  name  by  an 
Episcopalian  clegyman  of  noble  family,  who  acted  as  her  secretary,  and  she 
had  authority  to  dispose  of  them  to  the  number  of  144,000.  A  disease  to 
which  she  at  lust  fell  a  victim  seemed  to  indicate  that  she  was  pregnant,  and 
she  announced  herself  as  the  mother  of  the  promised  Shiloh.  The  interest 
and  expectation  of  her  enthusiastic  followers,  among  whom  was  a  large  num- 
ber of  Protestant  ministers,  were  excited  to  the  highest  pitch.  A  cradle  of 
the  most  costly  materials  was  ordered  at  a  fashionable  upholsterer's  by  her  de- 
voted votaries,  who  now  amounted  to  about  100,000,  and  were  determined  to 
spare  no  expense  in  preparing  for  the  birth  of  the  expected  Messiah.  But 
before  that  wonderful  event  occurred,  her  death  in  London,  in  181 7,  disap- 
pointed their  hopes,  and  a  post  mortem  examination  showed  that  in  her  case 
they  had  mistaken  dropsy  for  pregnancy.  England  and  Wales  still  possessed 
some  of  her  followers  as  late  as  1885  (Encycl.  Britt).  An  English  lady  named 
Essam  left  a  large  amount  of  money  for  publishing  what  she  called  the  Sacred 
Writings  of  Joanna  Southcott.  The  will  was  disputed  by  a  niece  of  the  testa- 
trix as  blasphemous,  but  was  sustained  by  the  Court  of  Chancery,  and  thus  the 
writings  of  Joanna  were  assigned  a  permanent  place  in  the  literature  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  that  posterity  might  know  what  progress  in  religion  had 
been  made  by  that  part  of  the  British  population  which  insisted  on  the  right 
to  read  the  Bible  in  any  version  they  thought  proper  to  select. 


Effects  of  Indiscriuiiiiatc  Bible  Reading.  5 1 


5'/ 


does  of  either  sex,  and  of  every  class  and  character  ;  all. 
armed  with  the  new  Bibles  and  illuminated,  as  the}^ 
maintained,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  bade  defiance  to  all  au- 
thority, divine  as  well  as  human.  There  was  no  sin  for- 
bidden by  the  decalogue,  no  offence  against  the  civil  law, 
no  outrage  on  public  decency,  no  absurdity  opposed  to 
common  sense,  of  which  those  bibliomaniacs,  miscreants, 
and  fanatics  were  not  guilty.  All  this  continued  until 
society  interposed  for  its  own  preservation,  and  re- 
pressed by  the  secular  arm  the  evils  which  imperilled  its 
very  existence.  And  all  this  is  proved  by  the  public 
records  of  the  time,  as  well  as  by  the  written  statements 
of  the  very  men  who  preached  the  principles  and  peddled 
around  the  Bibles,  by  which  so  many  miserable  wretches 
were  led  astray.  With  the  testimony  derived  from  these 
sources  most  readers  are  familiar,  as  it  is  found  in  works 
referred  to  above.  But  we  cannot  dismiss  this  part  of 
the  subject,  without  citing  the  statement  of  a  writer 
whose  position,  as  well  as  the  time  at  which  he  lived,  en- 
abled him  to  estimate  fairly  the  consequences  attendant 
on  the  indiscriminate  reading  of  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar 
tongue.  We  refer  to  Brian  Walton,  Protestant  bishop 
of  Chester,  England,  and  principal  editor  of  the  London 
Polvdot.  He  was  not  a  man  to  be  influenced  bv  ex- 
treme  or  desponding  views.  Besides,  his  sympathies 
were  with  that  form  of  religion,  which  had  superseded 
Catholicity  in  England,  and  had  given  the  people  of 
that  country  their  present  version  of  the  Bible  just  sixty- 
two  years  before  the  work  appeared  in  which  he  re- 
corded his  experience  of  the  effects  produced  by  it.  No 
admirer  of  that  version  can  therefore  object  to  Dr. 
Walton  as  an  incompetent  witness,  when  in  the  preface 
to  his  Polyglot,  after  stating  that  he  undertook  that  work 
with  the  hope  that  it  might  contribute  to  extricate  the 
English  Church  from  the  evils  in  which  she  was  involved 
by  "  a  crew,"  as  he  calls  them,  "  of  the  most  profligate  im- 


5i8  Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

posters,  who  ever}- where  now  pervert,  distort,  and  arbi- 
trarily corrupt  the  Divine  Word,  or  reject  it  absolutely, 
blaspheming  and  flinging  it  away  as  a  dead  letter."  He 
adds :  "  Aristarchus,  of  old,  could  hardly  find  seven  wise 
men  in  all  Greece;  but  amongst  us,  it  is  difficult  to  find 
the  same  number  of  fools.  For  they  are  all  doctors,  all 
inspired  from  above.  There  is  not  a  fanatic  nor  a 
mountebank  from  the  lowest  dregs  of  the  populace,  who 
does  not  vent  his  ravings  for  the  word  of  God.  For 
the  bottomless  pit  seems  to  be  opened,  and  out  of  it 
ascends  a  smoke,  which  has  obscured  the  heavens, 
and  from  it,  locusts  with  stings,  a  numerous  brood  of 
sectarists  and  heretics,  who  have  revived  all  the  ancient 
heresies,  and  added  to  them  fresh  and  monstrous  errors 
of  their  own.  But  it  is  well  known  from  what  quarter 
they  have  come.  These  are  the  people  who  have  over- 
run cities,  provinces,  and  entire  countries.  They  have 
even  taken  possession  of  churches,  and  pulpits,  and  along 
with  themselves  have  precipitated  into  the  pit  the  unfor- 
tunate people,  whom  they  have  led  astray."' 

This  is  strong  language,  yet  it  is  but  a  faint  echo  of 
the  lamentations,  with  which  Luther,  ■Nlelanchthon,  Bu- 
cer,  Brentius,  Capito,  and  other  I'eformers  bewail  the 
sad  state  of  public  morals  brought  about  by  the  reading, 
and  professedly  by  the  authoritv,  of  what  was  then 
hawked  about  as  the  Word  of  God.  It  was  to  check 
such  outrages  on  public  decency  and  common  sense, 
and  to  suppress  those  most  flagrant  crimes  against 
society  of  which  biblicists  were  guilty  wherever  the 
Reformation  extended,  but  especially  in  England  and 
Germany,  that  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  the 
vernacular,  unless  done  under  certain  conditions,  was 
prohibited  by  the  Church.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten, 
that  that  prohibition  was  aimed  at  versions  so  unfaith- 
ful to  the  original,  that  a  due  respect  for  the  Divine 
Word,  and   the  interest  of  all  into  whose  hands   they 


Effects  of  Indiscrintiiiatc  Bible  Reading.  5  19 

might  fall,  imperatively  dcniaiKled  the  interfeience  of  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities.  Under  any  circumstances, 
the  condemnation  of  those  versions  would  have  been 
well  merited,  as  they  were  palmed  oflf  on  the  simple  and 
ignorant  as  the  genuine  Scriptures;  whereas  they  were 
too  often  nothing  more  than  dangerous  counterfeits  or 
corrupt  copies  of  them,  placed  in  circulation,  too,  for 
the  base  purpose  of  obtaining  the  apparent  sanction  of 
some  inspired  writer  for  one  or  other  class  of  errors  at 
variance  with  human  reason  as  well  as  divine  revela- 
tion. 

In  recent  times,  the  inherent  vagaries  of  the  human 
mind,  which,  fostered  by  the  reading  of  vicious  versions 
of  Scripture,  produced  such  wide-spread  disorder  in 
the  sixteenth  and  two  following  centuries,  have  been 
more  or  less  held  in  check ;  not,  however,  because  com- 
mon sense  had  more  generally  re-asserted  itself,  nor  be- 
cause any  considerable  improvement  had  been  made  in 
the  current  versions,  or  that  the  number  of  their  readers 
had  been  notably  diminished  ;  but  because  society,  profit- 
ing by  experience,  had  adopted  summary  means  for  check- 
ing any  violation  of  the  public  peace,  or  good  order  in  the 
community.  All  movements  of  the  kind,  even  those  of 
which  the  Bible  is  at  the  bottom,  are  now  promptly  coun- 
teracted by  the  application  of  Lynch  law,  when  the  out- 
raged populace  considers  the  ordinary  process  too  slow 
and  uncertain  ;  or  by  trial  before  a  judge  and  jur}'  ;  or  by 
a  commission  de  Innatico  inqnirendo  deriving  its  authority 
from  the  regular  courts.  Either  of  the  two  last  methods 
of  dealing  with  bibliomaniacs  is  not  only  more  humane 
and  Christian  than  the  first,  but  is  equally  effective, 
though  more  expensive  and  less  expeditious,  and  should 
be  preferred  in  every  instance.  To  their  influence,  un- 
doubtedly, is  to  be  attributed  the  comparative  exemption 
of  modern  society  from  the  turbulent  and  sanguinary 
scenes,  which    disgraced  so   long   the  historv  of  those 


520  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

countries  that  embraced  the  reformed  religion;  though 
the  Bible  reader  is  probably  as  much  abroad  as  ever, 
and  preposterous  folly,  driveling  idiocy,  or  permanent 
insanity,  or  even  a  life  of  crime  is  now,  as  much  as  for- 
merly, the  risk  that  confronts  the  profession.  These  de- 
plorable results  of  what  is  generally  known  as  Bible 
reading  are,  however,  much  less  conspicuous  now  than 
formerly,  because  society  has  decided  that  the  victims, 
for  themselves  as  well  as  for  itself,  are  best  disposed  of, 
when  withdrawn  from  all  intercourse  with  others,  and 
sent  to  the  scaffold,  or  placed  in  prison,  or  consigned  to 
a  lunatic  asylum,  according  as  the  nature  of  their  malady 
may  require.  Yet  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that  a  large  vol- 
ume might  be  filled  with  the  tragical  and  melancholy 
record  of  all  such  cases  as  occur  in  any  single  year 
throughout  those  countries,  where  Bible  reading  is  epi- 
demic. The  following  facts  bearing  on  this  subject  have 
been  collected  by  one  who  is  an  occasional  reader  of 
the  public  press,  but  without  the  slightest  purpose  of 
attaching  any  statistical  value  to  them,  as  impl3ang  any- 
thing more  than  that  the  practice  of  Bible  reading  may 
not  unreasonabl}'  be  suspected  as  the  cause  of  much  of 
the  insanity,  not  to  say  crime,  which  prevails  in  the 
United  States,  where  these  facts  occun-ed. 

In  1879,  Charles  P.  Freeman,  of  Pocasset,  Mass.,  mur- 
dered his  own  child,  believing  that  he  was  called  to  do 
so  by  what  he  read  in  his  Bible.  His  wife  cooperated 
in  the  crime,  and  it  was  approved  by  the  Adventists,  a 
sect  to  which  they  belonged. 

In  1882,  J.  B.Smith,  near  Chisco  Beach,  California,  un- 
der "  the  inspiration  of  God,"  took  the  life  of  his  little 
son  in  "  Abrahamic  sacrifice." 

In  the  same  year,  near  Bloomington,  Indiana.  James 
Mink,  after  sharpening  a  butcher  knife,  was  prevented 
by  the  interference  of  a  neighbor  from  offering  up  in 
sacrifice  his  four-j^ear-old  boy,  a  deed  which,  after  pray- 


Effects  of  Indiscriminate  Bible  Reading.  521 

ing  and  reading  his  Bible,  he  believed  God  had  directed 
him  to  commit. 

In  1883,  John  Zempirick's  wife,  in  Milwaukee,  killed 
her  three  children,  literally  chopping  their  bodies  into 
mince  meat,  and  justifying  the  horrible  crime  by  saying 
"she  had  read  of  sacrificing  children  in  the  good  book." 

In  1884,  ori  the  third  day  of  September,  at  Reading,  Pa., 
died  May  Washington,  after  a  successful  attempt  at 
surpassing  Christ's  fast  in  the  wilderness,  about  which 
she  also  had  been  reading  in  her  Bible,  of  course.  When 
she  commenced  the  fast  she  weighed  275  pounds,  and 
100,  at  her  death. 

In  1885,  an  application  for  divorce  was  heard  in  Judge 
Tully's  court,  in  Chicago.  The  suit  was  brought  b)' 
Laura  M.,  ao[-ainst  T. Wentworth,  on  the  orround  of  crueltv 
and  infidelity.  According  to  the  lady's  testimony,  her 
husband  belonged  to  a  sect  organized  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Church  of  the  First  Born  of  the  Redeemer  in 
Heaven  and  Glorified  upon  Earth."  Besides  some  else- 
where in  the  Western  States,  the  membership  consists 
of  about  one  hundred  in  Chicago.  The  head  of  the  sect 
is  the  Rev.  George  Jacob  Schw^einfurth,  of  whom  more 
immediately.  It  would  appear  that  women,  as  well  as 
all  kinds  of  property,  are  held  in  common  by  the  mem- 
bers. The  association  would  therefore  be,  to  a  certain 
extent,  a  revival  of  the  abominable  community  that  so 
long  outraged  pubHc  decency  at  Oneida,  New  York. 
Sometime  before  Mrs. Wentworth  applied  for  a  divorce, 
her  husband,  along  with  herself,  attended  a  convention 
of  "  The  Church  of  the  First  Born,  etc.,"  at  a  private 
house.  The  preacher  wore  no  robes,  much  less  the  con- 
gregation, the  members  appearing  to  each  other  in  na- 
ture's raiment  only.  At  nightfall  they  herded  together 
in  a  common  room  for  repose.  Wentworth,  however,  de- 
nied many  of  the  charges  made  by  his  wife.  It  was  not 
denied  bv  Schweinfurth,'who  was  in  court,  that  Dora 


522  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Beekman,  wife  of  a  Congregationalist  minister,  and  a 
member  of  the  sect,  once  thought  that  she  bore  in  her 
womb  Jesus  about  to  be  born  a  second  time,  and  when, 
like  Joanna  Southcott,  she  found  that  she  was  mistaken, 
she  claimed  to  be  Christ  herself,  and  the  dupes  or  knaves 
who  composed  her  followers  seemed  to  believe  her. 
She  had  died  at  Byron,  Illinois,  the  headquarters  of  this 
singular  people,  two  years  before  the  above  facts  were 
made  public.  Subsequent  developments  showed  that 
after  her  death  Schweinfurth  had  taken  her  place,  and 
was  recognized  as  Christ  himself  by  his  followers,  who 
were  called  Beekmanites. 

In  1886,  the  wife  of  Charles  Lindsey,  Beech  Harbor, 
Maine,  a  lady  who  was  much  devoted  to  the  reading  of 
the  Bible,  attempted  to  execute  the  injunction  "  if  thine 
eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out,"  but  was  prevented  from  in- 
juring herself.  On  the  following  Saturday  she  was  heard 
repeatedly  saying  :  "  And  if  thy  hand  offend  thee,  cut 
it  off."  In  the  course  of  the  day  she  rushed  to  the  wood- 
pile, and  with  one  blow  of  the  axe  severed  her  hand  from 
her  arm.  Leaving  the  hand  beside  the  chopping  block, 
she  ran  back  to  the  house,  screaming  :  "  Save  me,  God, 
save  me."  Her  mother-in-law,  who  lived  with  her,  was 
so  engaged  at  the  time,  that,  before  she  was  aware  of  it, 
the  poor  Bible  reader  had  maimed  herself. 

In  1889,  certain  proceedings  in  equity,  at  Philadelphia, 
led  to  the  discovery,  that  a  very  secular  sect  had  been 
organized  in  that  city  several  years  before.  Its  leader, 
perhaps  founder,  was  Anna  Meister,  a  Swiss  woman,  her 
official  name  as  head  of  the  sect  being  J.  Elimar  Mira 
Mitta.  In  1864,  the  society  purchased  a  building  in 
South  Eleventh  Street,  and  the  deed  was  recorded  in  the 
name  of  ''J.  Elimar  Mira  Mitta,"  which,  among  the  ini- 
tiated, meant,  "  the  daughter  of  Jehovah."  Upon  the 
death  of  Jehovah's  daughter  her  followers,  who  had 
paid  $5000  for  her  propert}',  found  that  her  heirs  would 


Effects  of  Lidisiriiniiiatc  Bible  Rciuliiig. 


D-.> 


inherit,  unless  legal  measures  were  taken.  It  ajjpeared 
from  the  evidence  given  by  her  folUnvers,  that  the\- 
looked  upon  her  as  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity,  a  fact 
placed  beyond  all  doubt,  at  least  in  their  opinion,  as  an 
angel,  which  a{)peared  at  one  of  their  meetings,  bore  a 
scroll,  on  which  was  written  in  golden  letters,  that  Mira 
Mitta  was  the  daughter  of  Jehovah  and  the  sister  of  the 
Saviour.  The  evidence  further  showed  that  every  Sun- 
day religious  service  was  held  in  the  second  story  of 
the  house,  which  part  was  fitted  up  as  a  place  of  wor- 
ship. Mira,  of  course,  as  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity, 
being  surmounted  with  a  brilliant  ci-o\vn,  encircled  with 
a  bejewelled  girdle,  and  arrayed  in  a  loose  silken  robe, 
preached  to  her  devoted  followers,  who  abjectly  bowed 
before  her. 

In  1889,  Schweinfurth,  already  intnxluced  to  the 
reader  in  1885,  was  heard  from  at  different  dates.  April 
28,  a  Mrs.  Kinnehan,  professing  to  be  a  Presbyterian,  but 
who  had  recently  become  a  Beekmanite,  was  placed  on 
trial  for  blasphemy,  apostasy,  and  heresy,  before  a  Pres- 
byterian court  at  Chicago.  She  had  stated  in  public, 
that  she  believed  Christ  had  appeared  on  earth  in  the 
person  of  Schweinfurth.  She  refused  to  have  any  coun- 
sel, saying  she  was  able  to  defend  herself.  When  asked 
to  swear,  she  declined  to  do  so,  arguing  from  the  Bible 
that  it  was  proper  to  swear  not  at  all.  She  insisted  that 
she  had  been  taught  by  the  Presbyterian  Church,  that 
Christ  was  coming  on  earth,  and  she  was  now  fully 
satisfied  that  Schweinfurth  was  Christ.  The  court  de- 
cided that  she  should  be  expelled. 

On  the  following  day,  a  large  delegation  of  Beekman- 
ites  from  St.  Charles,  Minnesota,  who  had  witnessed 
the  dedication  of  a  Temple  in  honor  of  Schweinfurth  at 
Rockford,  Illinois,  returned  home.  They  were  highly 
elated  with  their  visit,  fully  believing  tliat  they  were 
the  apostles  of  Christ  (Schweinfurth),  conuiiissioned  to 


524  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament. 

convert  the  Gentiles,  as  they  called  all  other  Christians. 
Impressed  with  this  belief,  they  divided  themselves 
into  three  delegations  of  three  each,  for  the  purpose  of 
visiting  the  prayer-meetings  held  by  their  neighbors, 
and  there  preaching  the  new  Christ.  The  neighbors, 
however,  so  rushed  the  proceedings,  that  Schweinfurth's 
apostles  found  it  impossible  to  get  in  a  word.  And  in 
one  instance,  the  preacher,  as  soon  as  the  exercises 
were  concluded,  made  haste  to  get  his  horse  and  car- 
riage and  drove  off  with  his  wife,  whom,  at  the  end  of 
the  meeting,  the  Beekmanites  were  bombarding  with 
arguments  in  favor  of  Schweinfurthism. 

May  3,  in  the  Associated  Press  reports  it  was  stated, 
that  Dr.  J.  S.  Wilkins,  of  Chicago,  was  soon  to  begin 
suit  for  $25,000  against  Schweinfurth,  for  alienating  his 
wife's  affections,  she  having  recently  embraced  Schwein- 
furth's rehgion. 

Ma}'  8,  The  White  Caps,  a  secret  organization  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  employing  Lynch  law  against  parties 
who  cannot  be  reached  through  the  courts,  notified 
Schweinfurth  to  leave  Rockford  and  vicinity  within  ten 
days,  under  the  penalt}^  of  being  tarred  and  feathered, 
and  roasted  ahve.  They  claimed  that  he  was  breaking 
up  families.  But  he  employed  a  night-watchman,  bought 
guns  and  dogs,  preparing  to  give  the  White  Caps  a  hot 
reception. 

About  the  last  mentioned  date,  Schweinfurth's  estab- 
lishment, which  is  about  five  miles  distant  from  Rock- 
ford,  Illinois,  was  visited  by  a  newspaper  reporter, 
according  to  whom,  Schweinfurth's  propert}'  amounts 
to  $500,000,  derived  from  the  offerings  of  his  disciples. 
His  house  is  magnificently  furnished,  and  is  large 
enough  to  accommodate  a  hundred  persons.  Such  of  his 
followers  as  live  there,  are  engaged  in  the  raising  of 
blooded  stock  on  his  lands.  His  community  consists  of 
about  fifty  females,  and  twelve  or  fifteen  men,  who  at- 


Effects  of  Iiidiscriininatc  Bible  Reading.  525 

tend  to  the  rough  work.  The  self-styled  Christ  was 
interviewed  by  the  reporter,  when  the  following  dia- 
logue occurred  : 

"Are  you  Christ  ?" 

"  I  am.  I  am  more  than  Christ,  I  am  the  perfect  man, 
and  also  God.  I  possess  the  attributes  of  Jesus  the 
Sinless,  and  have  His  spirit ;  and  more  than  that,  I  am 
the  Almighty  Himself." 

"  This,  then,  is  your  second  advent  on  earth?  " 

"■  It  is,  and  I  am  accomplishing  untold  good.  The 
time  is  not  far  off,  when  I  shall  make  such  manifestations 
of  my  divinity  and  power  as  will  startle  the  world,  and 
will  bring  believers  to  me  by  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands." 

Further  questioning  brought  out  the  additional  facts, 
that  Schweinfurth  claimed  to  possess  unlimited  power, 
asserted  that  he  could  move  from  place  to  place  in  spite 
of  all  obstructions,  raise  the  dead  to  life,  cure  diseases, 
and  do  all  the  miraculous  things  he  performed  when  as 
Christ  he  was  on  earth  before.  He  also  stated  that 
he  would  remain  in  his  present  body  many  years,  and 
when  that  body  would  pass  into  the  corruption  of 
death,  his  spirit  would  enter  into  another  body  and  still 
live  on  earth.  He  denied  that  free  love  was  practised 
in  his  community.  Some  of  the  members  were  married, 
others  single  ;  but  all  who  lived  with  him  became  pure 
like  himself,  who  never  experienced  the  passions  of  men. 
Asked  if  he  had  on  his  hands  the  marks  made  by  the  nails 
at  his  crucifixion  when  first  on  earth,  he  answered  that  he 
did  not  claim  that  his  material  physique  had  not  chajiged 
and  put  on  new  flesh  ;  on  the  contrary,  new  material  sub- 
stance had  covered  the  point  of  the  torturing  instru- 
ments. Requested  to  give  a  sketch  of  his  early  life,  he 
said  that  he  was  born  of  German  parentage  in  Marion, 
Ohio,  in  1853.  and  had  studied  for  and  entered  the 
Methodist    ministry,   but   soon    became    so   dissatisfied 


526  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

with  the  un-Christ-like  course  of  his  ministerial  associates, 
that  he  could  not  feel  of  them,  though  among  them. 
"  In  December,  1877,  I  met  Dorinda  Helen  Fletcher 
Beekman,  the  bride  of  Christ.  She  was  my  spiritual 
Mary.  She  gave  to  the  world  its  Jesus  and  its  Lord." 
Yet  this  bold  blasphemer,  and  his  followers,  not  only 
read  the  Protestant  Bible,  but,  of  course,  are  prepared  to 
justify  their  impiety  by  what  they  find  therein.  Every 
century  since  the  fifteenth  has  had  its  Schweinfurth,  all 
using  the  same  text  book  as  the  Rockford  reformer.* 

The  above  list  of  follies,  freaks,  vagaries,  and  crimes 
resulting  from  the  unrestricted  use  of  the  Bible,  without 
note  or  comment  to  explain  passages,  which  the  simple 
and  ignorant  may  interpret  literally  to  their  own  detri- 
ment, or  that  of  others,  might  be  enlarged  to  almost  an}- 
extent.  The  victims  of  delusions  traceable  to  this  source 
are  so  common,  that  nobody  is  surprised  on  reading 
in  the  public  press  that  something  silly,  ridiculous,  or 
even  criminal  has  been  done  here  or  there,  under  an  im- 
pulse derived  from  the  intemperate  use  of  the  Bible. 
Some  of  these  deluded  creatures  are  placed  where  they 
can  do  no  harm  to  themselves  or  any  one  else.  Othei's 
among  them,  suspected  of  being  more  of  the  rogue 
than  the  fool,  are  driven  out  of  the  neighborhood  which 

'  August  16,  1890,  a  mass  meeting  of  indignant  citizens  was  held  at  Rock- 
ford,  in  order  to  devise  means  to  get  rid  of  Schweinfurth.  He  was  denounced 
as  a  fraud,  a  blasplienier,  and  an  impostor.  One  of  his  apostles  was  present 
to  defend  him,  and  maintained  that  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  the  Beek- 
manites  were  all  founded  on  the  Bible,  a  book  which  he  had  brought  along  to 
prove  that  point.  But  the  citizens  thought  they  knew  better,  and  passed  a 
resolution  calling  on  Schweinfurth  to  leave,  without  further  notice.  Subse- 
quently, the  .Slate  Attorney,  in  his  charge  to  the  Grand  Jury  for  the  October 
term  of  the  Circuit  Court,  called  on  that  body  to  investigate  the  charges  against 
Schweinfurth,  and  the  Sheriff,  as  directed,  gave  notice  to  the  inmates  of  "heaven," 
as  the  home  of  the  sect  is  called,  to  appear  before  the  Grand  Jury.  The  in- 
mates, or  at  least  some  of  them,  did  so  appear  on  Oct.  9.  The  Grand  Jury, 
however,  declined  to  authorize  further  proceedings  at  the  time.  But  the  end  is 
not  yet. 

I 


Effects  of  Indiscriiniiiatc  Bible  Reading.  527 

they  infest,  or  are  shot  clown  by  infuriated  mobs.  It 
would  be  quite  tedious  to  recount  the  manifold  symp- 
toms exhibited  by  the  plague  of  Bible  readin<;-.  Im»i- 
these  symptoms  vary  indefinitely,  according- to  times  and 
places.  But  quite  recently  this  plague  has  assumed  a 
new  phase,  in  the  form  of  what  is  called  by  the  initiated, 
the  prayer  cure,  or  faith  cure,  or  Christian  science, — a 
system  of  pathology,  which  dispenses  altogether  with 
the  services  of  a  regular  physician,  and  in  which  the 
practitioner  has  recourse  to  prayer  and  the  reading  of 
the  Bible,  as  an  infallible  cure  for  all  manner  of  diseases 
to  which  human  nature  is  subject.  To  these  two  or 
three  specifics  are  sometimes  added  by  those,  who  be- 
long to  this  new  school  of  medicine,  w^hat  in  their  tech- 
nology is  designated,  the  laying  on  of  hands  and  anoint- 
ing :  that  is,  the  Biblical  operator,  who  may  be  a  ladv  or 
a  gentleman,  imposes  hands  and  rubs  with  oil  the  person 
of  the  patient.  But  whether  the  manipulation  and  anoint- 
ing refer  to  the  entire  body  of  the  latter,  or  onlv  the 
part  affected,  is  not  w^ell  understood,  nor  is  it  known 
whether  any  specific  oil  is  necessarily  used. 

It  is  well  known  that  this  practice  has  already  led  to  se- 
rious results,  wdiere,  for  example,  the  patient  and  friends, 
placing  implicit  confidence  in  its  success,  occasionalh'  al- 
low the  disease  to  take  its  course  without  applying  to 
any  other  means  of  cure  than  those  mentioned,  and 
death  ensues ;  or  when,  as  sometimes  happens,  those  con- 
cerned in  the  case,  on  being  practically  convinced  by  the 
progress  which  the  malady  has  reached,  that  it  will  not 
yield  to  their  treatment,  consent  to  employ  a  regular  phy- 
sician, the  latter  sees  at  once  that  he  has  been  called  too 
late  to  be  of  any  service.  In  some  cases,  where  children 
have  become  victims  of  this  pernicious  delusion,  their 
parents  have  been  called  to  account  by  the  civil  author- 
ities as  more  or  less  responsible  for  the  sad  results  that 
have  followed.     But  it  is  hard  to  deal  with  such  people; 


528  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

and  the  most  that  any  court  can  do  with  them  is  to  ap- 
peal to  what  little  reason  they  have  left,  and  to  assure 
them  that  a  repetition  of  the  offence  may  involve  them 
in  serious  consequences.  They  will,  if  allowed  to  do  so, 
quote  text  after  text  of  Scripture,  to  prove  that  the 
prayer  cure  has  the  sanction  of  the  Bible;  but  those  who 
are  charged  \\ath  the  maintenance  of  law,  whether  Prot- 
estants or  Catholics,  would  not  likely  listen  to  the  argu- 
ments of  such  lunatics. 

There  is,  therefore,  among  our  dissenting  brethren,  and 
there  would  be  among  ourselves,  perhaps,  were  it  not  for 
the  laws  of  the  Church,  a  very  large  class  of  persons 
half  educated,  earnest,  and  honest,  who  devote  much  of 
their  time  to  reading  the  good  book,  as  they  call  the 
Bible,  but  being  without  a  competent  guide,  mistake  its 
meaning,  and  thus  wrest  the  Scriptures  to  their  own 
destruction  ;  or  finding  that  it  has  failed, to  act  as  a  talis- 
man against  all  evils  incidental  to  human  existence,  fling  * 
it  from  them  as  worse  than  worthless.     Aside  from  the 

'  On 'May  31,  1889,  Johnstown,  in  this  State,  was  overwhelmed  by  a  dehige. 
resulting  from  the  bursting  of  a  dam  above  the  city.  Out  of  a  population  of 
some  20,000,  about  30U0  lest  their  lives;  various  statements  regarding  the  dis- 
aster and  its  consequences  were  published  at  the  time.  On  June  6,  a  few  days 
after  the  dreadful  occurrence,  one  such  statement  appeared  in  the  New  York 
Times,  a  secular  paper  whose  religious  sympathies  are  Protestant.  In  that 
statement  made  by  a  representative  of  the  pa)  er  in  Johnstown  at  the  time,  it 
was  assertel  of  the  people  there,  that  "  Many  of  them  have  thrown  away  their 
Bibles,  and,  since  the  disaster,  have  openly  burned  them.  They  mnke  no  con- 
cealment of  this.  .  .  A  lady  who  had  lost  her  husband  and  four  children  was  gath- 
ering together  relics  of  her  home,  when  she  cnme  across  the  family  Bible  con- 
taining the  record  of  her  birth,  marriage,  and  the  birtlis  of  her  children.  A 
stranger  happened  to  pass,  and,  tearing  the  records  out,  she  proffered  the  book 
to  him.  The  man  happened  to  be  a  clergyman.  '  Do  you  realize,  madam, 
what  you  are  doing?'  '  Perfectly,'  was  the  reply;  '  T  have  no  further  use  for 
that  book.  I  have  always  tried  to  be  a  consistent  Christian  woman.  I  brought 
up  my  four  girls  as  strictly  as  I  was,  but  I  cannot  read  that  book  any  more.' 
The  clergyman  called  on  her  the  next  day.  She  would  not  see  him.  At  his 
request  some  of  her  friends  visited  her;  she  simply  explained  the  circumstances, 
and  refused  to  enter  into  any  argument." 


Effects  of  Indiscrimi)iatc  Bible  Rcadiiii;-.  529 

fact  that  the  Bible,  as  most  Protestants  will  admit,  con- 
tains passages  which  cannot  be  read  by  man}-  withoni 
moral  contagion,  it  is  evident  that  the  holy  and  pro- 
foundly mysterious  volume  should  never  be  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  class  just  referred  to,  without  some  use- 
ful note  upon  or  explanation  of  all  such  texts  as  they 
might  misinterpret  to  their  ow^n  i-uin.  Indeed,  some  of 
the  class  are  so  mentally  constituted,  that  it  is  not  only 
unjust  but  quite  unsafe  to  allow-  the  naked  Scriptures, 
even  when  honestly  translated,  to  circulate  among  them. 
In  fact,  for  all  of  them,  selections  from  the  Bible  adapted 
to  their  capacity,  or  perhaps,  better  still,  a  histor)-  com- 
posed of  the  contents  of  the  Bible  and  prepared  by  a 
competent  scholar,  would  be  much  preferable  to  the 
Bible  itself.  There  are  now,  and  probabl}'  have  been 
always  in  the  Church,  such  books  as  the  former,  as  well  as 
the  latter.  Bible  histories,  particularly,  when  judiciously 
composed,  are  for  ordinary  readers  far  more  instructive 
than  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  and,  besides  being  free  from 
the  dangerously  suggestive  passages  contained  in  it,  can 
be  safely  recommended  to  persons  of  every  age  and 
condition.  To  this  class  of  w^orks  belong  several  which 
were  written  in  medieval  times,  and  are  still  to  be  found 
in  the  libraries  ;  such,  for  example,  as  Berchoire's  Reper- 
torium,  Marchesini's  Matuinoi rectus,  and  Peter  Comes- 
tor's  Scholastic  History,  which  last  maintained  for  many 
ages  its  well-merited  popularity.  It  is  true,  these  works 
were  all  written  in  Latin,  and  (it  might  be  said)  were 
practicall}-  of  little  use.  But  we  are  to  remember  that, 
at  the  time  they  were  written,  Latin  w^as  very  generally 
understood  by  all, educated  persons,  so  that  almost  c\ery 
one  who  had  learned  to  read  might  derive  instruction 
from  their  perusal.  The  Latin  in  which  they  were  writ- 
ten was  often  used  as  a  means  of  correspondence  by 
others  besides  bishops  and  priests.  Even  ladies  availed 
themselves  of  it  for  that  purpose.     We  have  still  quite 


530  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

a  collection  of  letters  written  in  Latin  by  St.  Hildegarde 
to  popes,  bishops,  priests,  la}men  and  ladies,  with  others 
written  by  them  to  her  in  the  same  language.  *  Thus 
we  find,  that  Christians  in  those  early  times  were  pro- 
vided by  the  Church,  as  her  members  are  at  this  day, 
not  only  with  versions  of  the  Bible,  which  each  one  able 
to  read  could  understand,  but  with  books  which  con- 
tained a  connected  account  of  everything  recorded  in 
the  Bible,  and  were  written  in  a  language  with  which 
all  who  had  received  an  education  were  more  or  less 
familiar.  And  these  books  were  of  such  a  character, 
that,  unlike  the  Bible,  they  could  be  read  without  danger 
of  moral  contamination  or  mental  insanit}'. 

Yet  the  malicious  fable  invented  by  the  early  biogra- 
phers of  Luther,  that  the  Bible  was  an  unknown  book 
when  that  apostate  monk  threw  off  his  cowl  and  violated 
his  vows,  has  been  unblushingl}^  repeated  by  his  follow- 
ers ever  since,  and  no  amount  of  testimony  to  the  con- 
trary can  induce  some  of  them  to  withdraw  the  calum- 
ny, much  less  apologize  for  it.  In  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  everybody  who  cared  to  inquire,  knew  from  the 
beginning  that  the  circulation  of  the  Bible  among  their 
flocks  was  not  only  sanctioned  butactually  encouraged  by 
the  Catholic  clergy.  Yet  large  numbers  of  Protestants 
there  still  persisted  in  believing  and  even  publicly  pro- 
claiming the  truth  of  the  slanderous  statement,  which, 
after  being  fabricated  by  Luther's  historians,  was  im- 
ported into  England.  As  all  other  means  had  failed  to 
convince  the  Protestant  public,  that  in  this  as  well  as 
many  other  matters  pertaining  to  Catholic  belief  and 
practice  its  confidence  had  been  shamefully  abused  bv 
its  teachers,  the  English  and  Scotch  hierarch}'  in  1826 
put  forth  a  Declaration  of  Catholic  principles,  accom- 
panied by  an  Address  from  the  British  Catholics  to  their 
Protestant  fellow-countrymen,  which  bore  the  signatures 

'  Vide  Bibliotheca  Maxima  Patriim,  Tom.  xxiii. 


Effects  of  Indiscriminate  Bible  Reading.  531 

of  ten  Catholic  peers,  nine  Catliolic  baronets,  and  ncarh 
a  hundred  Catholic  gentlemen  of  great  respectabiiit  \ . 
Both  documents  were  deposited  in  the  British  Museum, 
that  they  might  remain  there  as  a  standing  testimony  of 
Catholic  belief,  and  a  solemn  protest  against  the  foul 
means  employed  by  the  traducers  of  that  belief.  The 
following  from  the  Declaration,  refers  to  the  subject  (jii 
which  we  are  now  engaged,  and  speaks  for  itself: 

'*As  to  translations  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  into  mod- 
ern languages,  the  Catholic  Church  requires,  that  none 
should  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  faithful,  but  such  as 
are  acknowledged  by  ecclesiastical  authority  to  be  ac- 
curate, and  conformable  to  the  sense  of  the  original. 
There  never  was  a  general  law  of  the  Catholic  Church 
prohibiting  the  reading  of  authorized  translations  of  the 
Scriptures;  but,  considering. that  many,  by  their  igno- 
rance and  evil  dispositions,  have  perverted  the  meaning 
of  the  sacred  text  to  their  own  destruction,  the  Catholic 
Church  has  thought  it  prudent  to  make  a  regulation 
that  the  faithful  should  be  guided  in  this  matter  by  the 
advice  of  their  respective  pastors." 

"  The  Catholics  in  England  of  mature  years,  have 
permission  to  read  authentic  and  approved  translations 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  with  explanatory  notes,  and  are 
exhorted  to  read  them  in  the  spirit  of  piety,  humility, 
and  obedience." 

"  Pope  Pius  VII.,  in  a  Rescript  dated  April  18,  1820, 
and  addressed  to  the  vicars-apostolic  in  England,  earn- 
estly exhorts  them  to  confirm  the  people  committed  to 
their  spiritual  care  in  faith  and  good  works,  and  to 
that  end  to  encourage  them  to  read  books  of  pious  in- 
struction, and  particularly  the  Holy  Scriptures,  in  trans- 
lations approved  by  ecclesiastical  authority;  because, 
to  those  who  are  well  disposed,  nothing  can  be  more 
useful,  more  consoling,  or  more  animating,  tiian  the 
reading  of  the  Sacred  Scrii)tures;  understood  in  their 


532  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

true  sense,  they  serve  to  confirm  the  faith,  to  support 
the  hope,  and  to  inflame  the  charity  of  the  true  Chris- 
tian." 

The  archbishops  and  bishops  of  Ireland,  in  the  same 
year,  published  a  similar  Declaration  of  Principles,  in 
which,  among  other  statements,  they  affirmed,  that 
"  The  Catholics  in  Ireland  of  mature  years  are  permitted 
to  read  authentic  and  approved  translations  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  with  explanatory  notes,  and  are  exhorted  to 
use  them  in  the  spirit  of  piety,  humility,  and  obedi- 
ence." 

There  never  has  been  a  country,  whether  exclusively 
or  partiall}'  Catholic,  whose  hierarchy  with  their  flocks 
would  hesitate  to  subscribe  to  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  these  extracts.  These  statements,  when  they  were 
made,  were  widely  published  throughout  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland.  They,  as  already  remarked,  were  even  de- 
posited permanently  in  a  public  institution,  where  they 
were  accessible  to  all  who  cared  to  read  them,  as  it 
their  authors  feared  not  to  challenge  contradiction  ;  yet 
after  that  Protestant  writers  were  to  be  found  who 
maintained  that  the  Church  was  opposed  to  the  circula- 
tion of  the  Scriptures.  And  well  it  would  be  for  the 
credit  of  the  religion  which  these  writers  professed,  if 
as  a  class  they  had  already  become  extinct,  wherever 
the  English  language  is  spoken.  For  surely  there  is 
nothing  but  disgrace  to  be  gained  in  the  end  by  the  re- 
petition of  a  statement,  which  enlightened  Protestant 
critics  have  long  since  rejected  as  false.  The  few,  who 
from  time  to  time  still  try  to  fan  into  flames  the  smoul- 
dering embers  of  religious  bigotry  b}^  a  reproduction 
of  this  threadbare  slander,  can  in  most  matters  be  just, 
generous,  courteous,  and  truthful ;  but  the  moment  they 
undertake  to  deal  with  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of 
the  Church,  all  these  humane  characteristics  disappear, 
so  that  Catholics  are  no  way  surprised  on  finding  these 


operations  of  Bible  Soeieties.  533 

gentlemen  making-  use  of  language  in  reference  even  to 
the  First  Bishop  of  Christendom,  which  they  would  be 
too  polite  to  employ  when  writing  about  the  Grand 
Lama. 

It  is  quite  possible  that,  notwithstanding  all  that  has 
been  done  by  Catholic  writers  who  have  preceded  us 
to  prove  that  American  Catholics  have  been  amply 
provided  by  the  direction  of  their  pastors  with  various 
editions  of  the  zvhole  Bible,  a  privilege  denied  to  their 
followers  by  the  reformers,  there  may  still  be  found  in 
this  countrv  a  few  of  that  once  numerous  class  of  ])cr- 
sons  who,  inheriting  the  prejudices  introduced  froTii 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  by  their  forefathers,  still  be- 
lieve that  the  general  reading  of  the  wScriptures  is  forbid- 
den by  the  Pope,  the  bishops  and  the  priests  carr3'ing  out 
his  instructions  in  the  matter.  For  the  information, 
therefore,  of  all  such  we  beg  to  direct  attention  to  the 
following  decree  of  the  Second  Plenai-y  Council  of  Balti- 
more in  1866,  remarking,  as  we  do  so,  that  this  decree 
was  simplv  the  re-enactment  of  one  passed  in  a  previous 
council  held  in  the  same  city.  "  We  direct  therefore  that 
the  Douay  version,  which  has  been  received  in  all  the 
churches  whose  members  speak  the  English  language,  be 
retained  by  all  means.  But  the  bishops  will  take  care 
that  all  editions  of  that  version,  both  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  shall  hereafter  be  made  after  the  most 
approved  copy,  to  be  designated  by  themselves,  and. 
shall  be  provided  with  notes  taken  only  from  the  Holy 
Fathers  of  the  Church  or  learned  Catholic  writers."  ' 
Perhaps  that  decree  was  displeasing  to  the  Pope.  Like 
all  decrees  of  similar  councils,  that  one,  before  becoming 
law,  had  to  be  submitted  to  him.  Did  he  condemn  it  ? 
Quite  the  contrary.  For,  in  replying  to  the  President 
of  the  Council,  he  said  that,  "  a  revision  of  the  Douay 
version  seems  opportune  ;  and  although  the  Holy  Sec 

•   Cone.  Phn.  Ball.  IT.,  Ada  el  Decreta,  pp.  14,  15. 


534  Tf^^  Canon  of  tJte  Old  Testameiit. 

is  averse  to  sanctioning  versions  of  the  kind  with  its 
approbation,  it  considers  you  will  perform  a  work  in 
itself  useful  and  conformable  to  the  wishes  of  the  Balti- 
more Council  of  1858,  if,  after  inviting  the  assistance  of 
divines  familiar  with  biblical  science,  and  collecting 
togeth'er  not  only  various  editions  of  the  Douay  version, 
but  even  other  English  versions  besides  the  Douay 
version,  if  such  be  extant,  and  employing  other  means 
specified  in  the  decree,  your  Grace  would  undertake 
the  correction  of  the  aforesaid  version."  * 

'  Cone.  Flen.  Bait.  11.^  p.  cxxxviii. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 


Not  only  in  England  but  in  all  other  Christian 
Countries  was  the  Bible  translated  into  the 
Vernacular  of  each  long  before  the  invention 
OF  the  Printing  Press,  the  deutero  books  being 

IN  EACH  CASE  MIXED  AMONG  THE  OTHERS. 

So  far  we  have  endeavored  to  ascertain  all  that  has 
been  done  by  the  Church,  from  first  to  last,  to  give  the 
Bible  to  the  people  of  England  and  others  elsewhere 
speaking  the  same  language.     The  result  is  before  the 
reader.     And,  although  the  records  of  her  action  in  ages 
preceding  the   Reformation   is  far  from   complete,  on 
account  of  the  wholesale   destruction  to   which  those 
records  were  consigned  at  the  latter  period,  that  result 
shows  that  during  those  ages  the  reading  of  the  Script- 
ures in  the  Latin  Vulgate,  or  in  such  authentic  transla- 
tions as  existed  at  the  time,  instead  of  being  forbidden 
in  Great  Britain,  was  actually  encouraged  there  by  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities.     We  have  also  seen  what  has 
been  done  bv  the  Church  to  secure  the  same  privilege 
for  the  other  nations  of  Western  Christendom  since  the 
time   when  the  printing  press  was  substituted  for  the 
pen,  in  multiplying  copies  of  the  sacred  volume.     And 
we  now  propose  to  glance  at  the  various  efforts  which 
were  made  under  her  auspices  or  after  her  example, 
before  that  time,  to  bring  the  Scriptures  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  those  other  nations  by  the  same  means.-versions 
in  the  vernacular  of  each.     Let  us  begin  with- 

Germany.-Ahont  the   middle  of  the  fourth  centurv 


536 


536  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Ulphilas  (Little  Wolf),  a  bishop  of  the  Moeso-Goths 
(now  Wallachians),  a  German  tribe,  translated  the  Script- 
ures into  their  language,  a  dialect  of  the  Gothic  from 
which  modern  German  is  derived.  Of  this  Gothic  Old 
Testament  nothing  but  a  few  fragments  of  II.  Esdras  or 
Nehemias  have  been  preserved,  though  portions  of  the 
other  books  have  been  discovered.  Of  the  New  Testa- 
ment belonorino-  to  this  version  a  o:reat  deal  has  been 
printed  in  detached  parts,  several  of  them  having  been 
discovered  by  the  indefatigable  Cardinal  Mali.  Ulphilas 
translated  his  Old  Testament  from  the  Septuagint,  and 
his  New  from  Greek  manuscripts.  Another  version  in 
the  German  of  his  time  was  made  by  order  of  Charle- 
magne, and  Louis  the  Debonair  is  said  to  have  caused 
another  German  version  to  have  been  made  soon  after. 
And  Otfrid  about  the  same  time  wrote  a  rhythmical 
paraphrase  of  the  Gospels  in  German,  which  is  still  ex- 
tant. In  fact,  the  appearance  of  new  versions  from  time 
to  time  seems  to  have  kept  pace  with  the  progress  of 
the  language.  For  we  find  among  the  earliest  books 
printed  a  German  translation  of  the  Scriptures  dated 
1466,  which  had  been  made  some  time  previously  by  an 
unknown  writer.  Two  printed  copies  of  this  Bible, 
without  any  date,  are  preserved  in  the  Senatorial  library 
of  Leipsic,  one  having  in  writing  the  date  1467.  This 
Bible,  besides  these  editions,  was  republished  at  least 
sixteen  times,  with  improvements,  before  1534,  the  year 
in  which  Luther's  translation  appeared. 

Franee. —  So  far  as  known,  the  earliest  attempt  at  trans- 
lating the  Scriptures  into  French  resulted  in  the  execu- 
tion of  a  version  of  the  books  of  Kings  and  MacJiabecs  re- 
ferred by  Le  Long  to  the  eleventh  century.  Several 
manuscript  versions  of  the  Psalms  still  survive,  which 
are  supposed  to  have  been  made  in  the  twelfth  century. 
"In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,"  says  Hallam,' 

'  Middle  Ages,  part  ii.,  p.  573. 


The  Printing  Press  preceded  by  various  Wrsions.     537 

"we  find  translations  of  the  Psalms,  Job,  Kin^^s,  and 
Macliabecs  in  French."  Jean  de  Vignes,  at  the  reqnest 
of  Jane  of  Burgundy  Queen  of  Philip,  King  of  France, 
translated  the  Epistles  and  Gospels  of  the  Missal.  A 
catalogue  of  the  library  collected  by  Charles  V.,  King 
of  France,  and  dated  1373,  contains  a  notice  of  a  volume 
comprising  the  books  of  Proverbs,  Psalms,  Wisdom, 
Ecclesiastes,  Ecciesiastieus,  Isaias,  and  eighteen  chapters 
of  Jeremias.  In  the  same  century,  and  by  order  of  the 
same  monarch,  Raoul  de  Presles  translated  the  Bible 
into  French  as  far  as  Psalms  or  Proverbs. 

Italy. — The  first  version  of  the  Scriptures  into  Italian 
appears  to  have  been  made  in  the  latter  part  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  by  James  a  Voragine,  a  Dominican  monk, 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Genoa.  But  the  Italians  may 
be  said  to  have  possessed  all  along  before  that  in  the 
Latin  Vulgate  a  Bible  in  their  vei-nacular. 

Spain.— 'In  the  reign  of  Alfonso  the  Wise  (d.  1284)  the 
Bible  by  his  direction  was  translated  into  the  Castilian 
dialect.  Reference  has  already  been  made  '  to  another 
Spanish  version,  printed  in  1478,  but  written  about  1405, 
and  therefore  several  3'ears  before  the  printing  press  was 
introduced.  It  was  the  work  of  a  Carthusian  monk, 
Boniface  Ferrer,  if  not  of  his  sainted  brother  Vincent, 
who  at  least  assisted  in  its  preparation,  and  died  in  1419. 
Indeed,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Carranza,  Arch- 
bishop of  Toledo  (d.  1576),  as  quoted  by  Balmcz, "  it  ap- 
pears that  the  Scriptures  were  translated  in  Spain  into 
the  vulgar  tongue  "by  order  of  the  Catholic  sovereigns, 
at  the  time  when  the  Moors  and  Jews  were  allowed  to 
live  among  the  Christians  according  to  their  own  law." 

Portugal. — As  early  as  the  reign  of  John,  surnamed  the 
Great,  who  governed  the  country  from  1385  to  1433,  the 
New  Testament  was  translated  into  Portuguese,  accord- 
ing to  the  historian,  Emanuel  Sousa. 

^   Supra,  p.  440.  -  Protestantism  and  Catholicity  Compared,  p.  215. 


538  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Flanders. — From  a  fragment  of  a  manuscript  Bible 
written  at  Worcester,  in  1210,  it  is  learned,  as  we  are 
told  by  Usher,  that  the  Bible  had  been  translated  into 
Flemish  before  that  time. 

Poland. — About  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century 
the  Bible  was  translated  into  the  Polish  language  by 
order  of  St.  Hedwige,  wife  of  King  Ladislaus  IV.;  and 
during  the  same  reign  there  seems  to  have  been  a  second 
version  by  And.  Jassowitz. 

Bohemia. — As  John  Huss  in  one  of  his  controversial 
tracts  alludes  to  a  Bohemian  New  Testament,  a  version 
of  at  least  that  part  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  Bohemian 
language  must  have  been  made,  at  all  events,  about  the 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  if  not  earlier. 

Szveden. — A  Swedish  version  of  the  Bible  was  made 
in  the  fourteenth  century  by  the  direction  of  Sweden's 
sainted  Queen  Brigitte. 

/eeland.— J on:is  Arnagrimus,  one  of  the  disciples  of  the 
celebrated  astronomer,  Tycho  Brahe,  mentions  an  Ice- 
landic version  which  must  have  been  made  as  early  as 
1279,  for  it  was  extant  at  that  time. 

Hinigary. — We  learn  from  Danko,'  that  according  to 
an  ancient  author  of  a  life  of  Blessed  Margaret,  daugh- 
ter of  Bela  IV.  (d.  1270),  she  was  accustomed  to  read  the 
Psalms  and  Passion  of  Our  Lord  in  her  own  vernacular. 
A  manuscript  copy  of  a  version  of  the  Scriptures  in  the 
Hungarian  language,  made  by  Thomas  and  Valentine, 
Friars  Minor,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  is  still  preserved 
at  Vienna.  It  contains  the  books  of  Ruth,  JuditJi,  Esther, 
Baruch,  part  of  Daniel,  part  of  Malachias,  and  the  other 
Minor  Prophets  complete,  but  is  in  a  mutilated  condi- 
tion. The  version  has  been  made  from  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate, and  is  provided  with  Jerome's  prologues.  There  is 
reason  to  believe,  that  it  at  first  comprised  the  other 
sacred  books,  for  there  is  preserved  at  Munich  another 

'  De  S.  Script.,  vol.  I.,  jj.  244,  etc. 


The  Printing  Press  preceded  by  1  'a r ions  I  'ersions.       539 

manuscript,  containing  a  Hungarian  vcrsi(^n  of  the  four 
Gospels  bj  the  same  authors.  Fragments  of  a  Hunga- 
rian version,  which  some  suppose  to  have  proceeded  from 
the  same  source,  are  to  be  found  in  a  manuscript  be- 
longing to  the  episcopal  library  of  Alba  Carolina,  a 
town  and  bishop's  see  in  Transylvania.  These  frag- 
ments consist  of  a  mutilated  translation  of  Job  and  the 
Psalms,  together  with  portions  of  the  Gospels  and  Epis- 
tles by  a  later  hand.  Friar  Bartholy,a  man  of  noble  ex- 
traction and  a  member  of  the  order  of  St.  Paul  the 
Hermit,  sometime  before  1456  (for  he  died  in  that  year), 
translated  the  entire  Bible  into  the  Hungarian  lanefuaire. 
The  people  of  Hungary,  therefore,  like  the  Cathohcs  of 
other  countries,  had  the  Bible  in  their  own  language 
long  before  the  invention  of  the  printing  press. 

Sclavonia. — In  the  ninth  century  SS.  Cyril  and  Metho- 
dius, brothers,  whose  feast  by  the  direction  of  the  pres- 
ent Sovereign  Pontiff  is  celebrated  on  the  fifth  of  July, 
translated  the  Sacred  Scriptures  into  the  language  of  the 
Slavonians  (Bulgarians).  The  version  was  made  from 
the  Septuagint  cop}-  of  the  Old  Testament  and  from 
Greek  manuscripts  of  the  New.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
however,  that  according  to  some  critics,  Cyril  and 
Methodius  translated  into  Slavonian  only  certain  por- 
tions of  Scriptures.  Yet,  existing  manuscripts  show 
that  a  complete  version  was  made  in  that  language  not 
later  than  the  fourteenth  century.'  The  two  sainted 
missionaries,  who  were  the  first  to  present  the  Scriptures 
in  a  language  which  was  the  basis  of  the  various  dialects 
spoken  by  the  Moravians,  Bohemians,  Poles,  Mucovitcs. 
Russians,  Bosnians,  Servians,  Croatians,  and  Bulgarians, 
converted  to  the  faith  several  of  the  tribes  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  those  among  whom  they  principally  labored. 
They  also  invented  the  Slavonian  alphabet,  and  trans- 
lated the  Liturgy   into  the  Slavonian  tongues,    which, 

1  Danko  De  S.  Script.,  vol.  I.,  p.  239. 


540  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

besides  the  Latin,  Greek,  Syriac,  Coptic,  Ethiopian,  and 
Armenian,  is  the  only  one  in  which  the  Church  allows 
the  divine  offices  to  be  performed.  But  these  are  all 
dead  languages. 

Ireland. — What  was  done  in  earl}^  times  to  provide 
the  people  of  Ireland  with  the  Scriptures  in  their  ver- 
nacular we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining.  If  Hallam, 
a  writer  not  disposed  to  indulge  in  extravagant  praise 
of  Ireland,  felt  justified  in  saying  that  in  the  sev- 
enth century,  "  When  France  and  Italy  had  sunk  in 
deeper  ignorance,  the  Irish  monasteries  stood  certainly  in 
a  very  respectable  position,"  and  that,  "  that  island  both 
drew  students  from  the  Continent,  and  sent  forth  men 
of  comparative  eminence  into  its  schools  and  churches,"  ' 
one  can  hardly  suppose,  that  no  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  was  made  b}-  those  Irish  scholars  in  their 
mother  tongue.  Still,  we  can  find  no  trace  of  any  such 
version  before  the  fourteenth  century,  when  it  appears 
one  was  made  by  Richard  Fitz  Ralph,  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  who  died  in  1347.  According  to  Hartwell 
Horne,^  William  Daniel,  Protestant  archbishop  of  Tuam, 
(d.  1628),  translated  the  New  Testament  into  Irish,  and  in 
1629,  with  the  aid  of  an  Irish  scholar  named  King,  the 
Old  Testament  was  translated  by  William  Bedell,  Prot- 
estant Bishop  of  Kilmore  and  Ardagh  (d.  1641).  King, 
who  was  ignorant  probably  of  all  languages  except 
Irish  and  English,  translated  the  English  Protestant  Old 
Testament  into  Irish,  and  Bedell,  who  may  have  had 
some  knowledge  of  Irish,  compared  King's  \ersion,  it  is 
said,  with  the  originals.  The  entiie  Protestant  Bible 
having  thus  been  translated  into  Irish,  earnest  efforts 
were  made  to  secure  a  circulation  for  it  among  the  na- 

■   IJteratu7-e  of  Europe,  Part  I.,  ch.  i'.  ^  7. 

-  Le  Long,  Biblicl/ieca  Sacra,  lom.  II.,  p.  369.  Boerner  ed.;  A'oiiveiu  tito<;- 
raphie,  vol.  XLII.,  p.  178. 

•'  Intiod.  Biographical  Appendix  to  vol.  II.,  p.  87. 


The  Printing  Press  preceded  by  various  Wrsions.    541 

lives.      But    they,   to    the    disgust  and    surprise    ol    its 
authors  and  patrons,  were  no  more  disposed  to  accept 
an  Irish  Protestant  Bible  than  tliev  were  to  coinitenance 
the  Protestant  clergy,  which  England  thrust  upon  them. 
Very    probably,    however,  even    before    Fitz-Ralph's 
translation  appeared,  efforts  in  the  same  direction  had 
been  made    by  Irish  scholars.     This  conclusion  vSeems 
easily  reached  by  a  careful  study  of  a  manuscript  pre- 
served in   the    University   (formerly  the  Cathedral)  Li- 
brary of  Wurtzburg  in  Germany,  where  an  Irish  monas- 
tery long  existed,  and  was  frequently  visited  by   Irish 
ecclesiastics  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.     Until 
quite  recently  it  was  hardly  known  that  the  manuscript 
in  question  existed.     At  last  several  quotations  from  it, 
which    appeared  in   the  learned   work  of    the  German 
scholar  Zeuss  on  Celtic  Grammar,  directed  general  atten- 
tion to  it,  and  it  was  pronounced  by  Zeuss  himself  and 
other  Celtic  antiquarians,  a  production  of  the  eighth  or 
beginning  of  the  ninth  century.     It  contains  a  Latin  ver- 
sion of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  as  far  as  Hebrew  vii.  5, 
accompanied  with  an  Irish  gloss  of  the  sacred  text   be- 
tween the  Latin  lines  and  in  the  margin.     The  hand-writ- 
ing of  three  scribes  is  discernible  in  it.     But  it  contains 
no  date  and  no  name,  and  has  been  appropriately  desig- 
nated Codex  Paiilinus.     This  interesting  relic  of  ancient 
Irish  scholarship  was  of  course  the  work  of  some  Irish 
scribes  at  Wurtzburg,  or  in  their  own  native  Isle,  who 
had  it  conveyed  to  their  monastery  in  Germany,  or  left 
it  there  with  the  hope  that  it  might  be  preserved  to  pos- 
terity.    An  English  translation  of    it  was  published  in 
Great  Britain  in  1887.    And  in  the  following  year  several 
portions  of  this  translation  appeared  in  Dubhn.     As  many 
of  the  glosses  are  simply  Irish  translations  of  the  Paulme 
text,  it  would  seem  that  the  Irish  people  became  famil- 
iar with  the  scriptures  at  a  very  early  period  by  means 
of  versions  in  their  native  tongue. 


542  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testajnent. 

With  the  exception  of  this  Irish  Protestant  Bible,  men- 
tioned above,  all  the  versions  just  enumerated  were  made 
before  the  invention  of  the  printing-  press  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Church  or  of  her  children  who  labored  in 
her  name,  and  were  actuated  by  her  spirit  as  well  as  en- 
couraged by  her  example.  But  this  enumeration  would 
not  be  complete,  were  it  not  to  include  also  those  various 
other  versions,  which  have  been  executed  almost  all  of 
them  by  writers  belonging  to  her  communion  for  the  use 
of  the  Christian  communities  throughout  Asia  and  Africa, 
as  the  Syrians,  Armenians,  Arabians.  Egyptians,  Ethio- 
pians, and  Georgians,  together  with  the  versions  made 
into  several  of  the  dialects  spoken  by  some  of  these 
peoples.  Besides  these,  there  are  probably  many  other 
versions,  it  may  be  of  a  later  date,  and  of  which  very 
little  is  known,  but  all  originating  in  the  anxiety  which 
the  Church  has  always  exhibited  to  give  to  the  faithful 
the  Scriptures  in  their  own  vernaculars,  whenever  there 
was  reason  to  believe  that  that  favor  would  not  be 
abused.  Thus  John  Pinkerton,  '  a  Scotch  antiquarian, 
who  died  in  Paris  in  1826,  found  in  that  city  translations 
of  the  Bible  into  the  dialects  of  Northern  Asia  and 
Thibet,  each  with  the  characters  of  the  language  in 
which  it  was  made.  These  translations  were  preserved 
in  the  archives  of  the  Propaganda,  and  constituted  part 
of  the  plunder  which  Napoleon  I.  carried  awa}'  from 
Rome  to  Paris. 

It  were  unnecessary,  even  if  possible,  to  give  a  list  of 
all  such  versions.  Mere  reference  to  them  is  all  that 
the  present  work  calls  for.  Indeed,  they  are  here  al- 
luded to  only  in  a  general  way,  as  they  serve,  in  connec- 
tion with  those  made  in  Western  Christendom,  to  show 
that  the  policy  of  the  Holy  See  has  been  at  all  times 
that  which  prompted  Pope  Damasus  to  encourage  St. 
Jerome  in  undertaking   those    labors,   which    have    re- 

'  Encyclopedia  Americana,  vol.  II.,  p.  93.   (Boston  1856.) 


The  Frmting  Press  preceded  by  various  J  'ersions.     54  ^ 

dounded  so  much  to  the  purihcation  of  the  sacred  text 
and  the  elucidation  of  its  meaning.  Circumstances  did 
not  always  require  the  Roman  Pontiffs  to  express  in 
acts  or  in  words  their  sentiments  on  the  subject  now 
before  us.  But  when  it  became  necessary  for  them  to 
do  so,  no  one  can  doubt  that  their  language  was  uni- 
versally such  as  to  show,  that  they  considered  it  an 
essential  part  of  their  office  to  guard  the  integrity  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  and  to  encourage  the  study  of 
them  by  the  laity  as  well  as  by  the  clergy.  Gelasius  in 
the  fifth  centurv,  Innocent  111.  in  the  thirteenth,  Eusfe- 
nius  IV.  in  the  fifteenth,  Gregory  XIII.  in  the  sixteenth, 
Pius  VI.  and  Pius  VII.  in  the  eighteenth,  and  Pius  IX. 
in  the  nineteenth,  not  to  mention  others,  did  simply, 
each  in  his  own  way,  and  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
case  before  him,  what  Damasus  had  done  in  the  fourth. 
It  appears  therefore  from  the  facts  already  stated, 
and  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  Protestant  as  well  as 
Catholic  writers,  '  that,  before  ever  a  printed  bc^ok  ap- 
peared, the  Scriptures  had  been  translated  not  less  than 
twenty-nine  times  into  the  principal  languages  spoken  in 
Europe.  These  languages,  each  entirely  distinct  from 
the  other,  amounted  to. about  fourteen.  Into  some  of 
them  the  Scriptures  had  been  translated  frequently,  into 
others  but  once.  As  many  as  seven  of  the  entire  num- 
ber were  made  for  the  people  of  England,  and  of  these 
as  well  as  of  all  the  rest  several  contained  the  entire 
Bible.  At  least  three  translations, — two  complete  and 
one  partial — had  been  made  previous  to  the  period  just 
mentioned,  for  the  use  of  those  who  spoke  the  German 
lanofuaofe.  The  number  of  translations  which  have 
been    made    since    then    into    the   languages    of   West- 

'  Several  of  these  writers  have  been  already  mentioned  in  the  preceding  re- 
marks. To  these  may  be  added  Dr.  Spaliiing  in  his //«/.  vf  the  Prot.  Reform. 
I.,ch,  xi.;  a  writer  in  \.\ie  Dublin  Review,  vol.1.;  Dr.  Wright,  Kitto's  Cyclopedia, 
(  Versions. ) 


544  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

ern  Christendom,  of  course  far  exceeds  that  of  those 
produced  in  the  previous  period  ;  of  the  former  at  least 
five  are  written  in  EngHsh,  and  probabh'  a  greater 
number  in  German.  And  those  English  and  German 
versions  which  preceded  the  printing  press,  as  well  as  all 
others  written  since,  generally  contained  the  entire 
Bible,  and  have,'  many  of  them,  served  as  sources  of  in- 
numerable copies  or  editions. 

It  is,  therefore,  no  exaggeration  to  sav,  that  before 
Martin  Luther  gave,  as  his  admirers  boast,  the  Bible  to 
the  people,  the  Catholic  Church  had  already  given 
them  the  genuine  Scriptures  in  their  own  vernaculars, 
some  fifty  times,  without  counting  the  written  copies 
made  of  manuscript  versions,  or  editions  issued  of 
printed  versions,  all  executed  not  only  with  her  permis- 
sion but  under  her  encouragement.  In  the  ordinary 
course  of  her  ministrations,  and  in  the  absence  of  all 
rivalry  and  opposition,  she  had  repeatedly  sanctioned,  and 
through  her  clergy,  even  undertaken  and  accomplished 
the  production  of  version  after  version,  for  the  people  of 
England  and  Germany,  ages  before  Luther,  T3'ndale, 
and  Coverdale  conspired  to  mutilate  and  pervert  the 
sacred  contents  of  the  inspired  volume  by  assuming  the 
role  of  translators. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  that  all  those  vernacular 
versions,  which  preceded  the  reformation  in  Europe, 
whatever  their  language,  having  been  made  either 
from  the  Vulgate  or  Septuagint,  both  containing  the 
Tridentine  canon,  included  the  deutero  Old  Testament 
Books.  So  thoroughly  convinced  were  the  people 
everywhere,  that  these  books  were  part  of  God's  writ- 
ten word,  that  neither  Luther  nor  King  James  I.  dared 
to  exclude  them  from  their  translations.  Had  they  done 
so,  these  translations  would  have  been  summarily  re- 
jected by  the  people.  The  most  they  could  do,  and  they 
did  do  it,  was  to  remove  these   books  from  the  places 


The  Printing  Press  preceded  by  various  Versions.      545 

they  had  occupied  all  along,  insert  them    at   the  end  of 
the  Old  Testament,  and  call  them  Apocrypha,  a  word  of 
whose  import  the  rank   and    file   of   Protestants  at  the 
time  had  no  conception,  and  to  which  they  attached  no 
importance,  just  as  they  did  not  consider  the  relative 
position    assigned    any  particular   book  or   number   of 
books  a  vital    matter.     They  had  in    these  vitiated  ver- 
sions all  the  books  their  fathers  had  before  them,  that 
was  enough.     Of  the  character  of  these  versions  they 
were  unable  to  judge.     The  purport  as  well  as  the  ne- 
cessity of  these  changes,  however,  gradually  grew  upon 
many    Protestants,   especially   in  Great   Britain,  under 
the  influence    of   the    teaching  they  received,  till  at  last 
the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  as  we  have  seen, 
as  if  conscious  of  its  own  infallibility,  by  a  definitive  sen- 
tence, from  which  no  appeal  was   allowed    and  against 
which  no  protest  was  heeded,  declared,  that  thQApocrj. 
pha  were  no  part  of  the  Sacred  Scripture,  and  not  only 
forbade  its  publishers  to  issue,  or  its  agents  to  distribute 
Bibles    containing   the    condemned   books,  but  even  di- 
rected that  its  members  should  not  assist,  nor  its  funds 
be  expended  in  the  circulation  of  Bibles  in  which  those 
books  were   inserted.      Yet  these  are  the  people  whose 
denunciations  of   the    tyrannical   and   arbitrary  policy, 
which  they  falsely  attribute  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  are 
applauded    by  the  silly  enthusiasts  who   love  to  swell 
the   crowd   at   Bible   meetings  and  pan-Protestant  con- 
ventions. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 


Protestant  Confessions  of  Faith  on  the  Canon  of 
Scripture. 

Having,  in  the  preceding  pages  said  all  that  seemed 
necessary  regarding  the  opinions  expressed  on  the  Can- 
on of  Scripture,  and  the  versions  written  by  the  early 
reformers,  and,  having  also  stated  what  has  been  done 
by  the  Church  to  place  the  Scriptures  in  the  hands  oi 
the  laity,  as  well  as  explained  the  principles,  by  which 
her  action  in  this  matter  is  regulated,  we  are  now  at  liber- 
ty to  discuss  the  views  advanced  on  the  Canon  in  those 
declarations  commonlv  called  "  Confessions  of  Faith," 
which  have  been  publiclv  set  forth  by  themselves,  as 
standards  of  belief  professed  by  the  various  Protestant 
denominations. 

In  the  first  Articles  of  Religion,  amounting  to  forty-two, 
which  the  Anglican  denomination  in  1552  adopted  and 
promulgated  with  the  roval  sanction,  no  catalogue  of 
the  Scriptures  appeared.^  Edward  VI.  and  his  spiritual 
advisers  were  probably  willing  that  the  people  should 
continue  to  believe  as  they  had  always  done,  that  God 
himself  was  the  author  of  all  the  books  commonly  in- 
cluded in  the  Latin  Vulgate,  or  in  those  translations  of  it 
which  they  and  their  forefathers  had  been  accustomed 
to  read  ever  since  they  became  Christians.  In  fact,  it 
was  not  until  1562^  that  a  new  light,  under  the  benign 
influence  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  burst  upon  the  minds  of 
those  who  shaped  the  policy  of  the  Established  Church 

'   Kitto's  Cyclop.,  vol.  I.,  p.  557.  -   Ibid. 

546 


In  Protcstayii  Confessions  of  Faith.  547 

and  dictated  the  creed  of  its  members.  It  is  not  said, 
nor  was  it  claimed,  that  they,  in  this  or  any  other  matter, 
were  guided  by  a  special  revelation,  or  by  the  possession 
of  superior  knowledge.  But  the  substitution  of  thirty- 
nine  articles  for  forty-two  was  the  result.  And  in  this 
instance  the  change  was  approved,  if  not  made,  by  the 
lady  who,  as  sovereign,  exercised  supreme  power  in 
spiritual  as  well  as  temporal  affairs. 

These  thirty-nine  articles  are  put  forth  as  an  expres- 
sion of  the  religious  belief  entertained  by  all  who  pro- 
fess Anglicanism,  even  though  unable  to  agree  about 
the  meaning  of  some  of  them.  It  is  in  Article  VI.  that 
a  list  of  those  books  is  given  which  alone  Anglicans 
receive  as  canonical.  That  list  is  followed  by  another, 
in  which  are  included,  besides  III.  and  IV.  Esdras,  and 
the  Prayer  of  Manasses,  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  "  Holy  Scripture,"  says  the  Article,  "  con- 
taineth  all  things  necessary  to  salvation,  so  that  whatso- 
ever is  not  read  therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is 
not  to  be  required  of  any  man,  that  it  should  be  believed 
as  an  article  of  the  Faith,  or  be  thought  requisite  to 
salvation."  Very  few  of  the  points  inculcated  in  the 
other  articles  would  stand  the  test  here  established. 
Indeed,  there  is  no  truth  that  has  not  been  proved 
an  error,  and  no  error  that  has  not  been  shown  to  be  a 
truth,  on  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  by  some, 
who  have  appealed  to  its  pages.  "  In  the  name  of 
the  Holy  Scripture,"  continues  the  Article,  "  we  do 
understand  those  canonical  Books  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  of  whose  authority  was  never  any  doubt  in 
the  Church."  Then  follows  a  list  "  of  the  names  and 
number  of  the  Canonical  Books."  after  which  the  Arti- 
cle adds,  "and  the  other  books  (as  Hierome  saith),  the 
Church  doth  read  for  example  of  life  and  instruction  of 
manners  ;  but  yet  doth  it  not  apply  them  to  establish 
anv  doctrine  ;  such  as  these  following  :      The  Third  Book 


548  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

of  Esdras,  the  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras,  the  Book  of  Tobias^ 
the  Book  of  Judith,  the  rest  of  the  Book  of  Esther,  the  Book 
of  Wisdom,  fesus  the  Son  of  SiracJi,  BarncJi,  the  PropJiet, 
the  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  the  Story  of  Susanna,  of 
Bel  and  the  Dragon,  the  Prayer  of  Manasses,  the  First  Book 
of  Maccabees,  the  Second  Book  of  Machabees.''  Probably  be- 
cause the  canonicity  of  some  of  them  had  been  denied 
by  Luther  and  other  reformers,  there  is  no  Hst  given  of 
the  New  Testament  Books.  The  Article,  in  referring  to 
them  immediately  after  the  preceding  list,  merely  says,, 
"  All  the  Books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  they  are  com- 
monly received,  we  do  receive,  and  account  them  canon- 
ical." But  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  the  godly 
framers  of  Article  VI.  intended  to  include,  among  the 
New  Testament  Books  deutero  as  well  as  proto  books, — 
books  that  had  been  doubted  as  well  as  those  that  had 
never  been  doubted.  For  the  former,  as  well  as  the  lat- 
ter, have  always  been  found  in  English  Protestant 
Bibles,  unaccompanied  by  any  note  implying  that  thev 
were  ever  considered  of  inferior  authority  by  any  one. 

The  entire  Article,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  untrue. 
For  by  several  respectable  writers  i)i  the  CJmrcJi  the 
canonicity  of  more  than  one  of  those  Old  Testament 
books,  which  it  pronounces  canonical,  has  been  doubted 
or  denied.  '  Besides,  there  are  several  of  "  the  other 
books,"  which,  neither  "  Hierome "  nor  any  one  else 
(Queen  Elizabeth's  divines  excepted)  "  saith,  the  Church 
doth  read  for  example,  etc.,"  or  any  other  purpose  what- 
ever. In  fact,  St.  Jerome  is  grossly  misrepresented  by 
these  divines.  For  in  his  Preface  to  the  Books  of  Solomon, 
to  which  Article  VI.  evidently  alludes,  the  Saint  is  not 
only  silent  about  Esdras  III.  and  IV.,  but  has  not  a 
word  about  "  The  Prayer  of  Manasses."  In  his  Preface 
to  Daniel  he  indeed  mentions  "  the  history  of  Susanna, 
the  Hvmn  of  the  Three  Children,"  and  as  he  calls  it,  "  the 

'  Vide  Hody,  De  Bibliornm  Textibus,  pp.  646-648. 


Ill  Protestant  Confessions  of  faith.  549 

fables  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon  ;  "  but  he  does  not  even  inti- 
mate what  the  Article  makes  him  say,  that  "the  Church 
doth  read  them  for  example  of  life  and  edificatiun  of 
manners,"  or  reads  them  at  all  for  that  sole  purpose; 
though  she  really  reads  and  has  always  read  them,  just 
as  she  has  always  read  the  other  canonical  books.  On 
the  contrary,  it  would  seem  from  St.  Jerome's  own 
words,  that  in  his  time  the  same  use  was  made  of  those 
fahilas  as  of  all  other  portions  of  Scripture,  else  why 
were  they,  as  he  remarks  in  the  same  Preface,  "  dis- 
persed throughout  the  entire  world."  Such  universal 
use  of  any  Scriptural  book,  by  the  entire  clergy  as  well 
as  laity  throughout  the  world  (for  this  is  implied  in  the 
statement  of  St.  Jerome),  might  not  be  conclusive  proof 
of  its  canonicity.  It  would,  however,  be  strong  presump- 
tive evidence  of  the  fact.  And  Mi^hen,  as  in  the  case  be- 
fore us,  that  evidence  is  confirmed  by  the  solemn  verdict 
of  an  ecumenical  council,  the  fact  in  question  becomes 
one  about  which  it  would  be  extreme  folly  to  entertain 
a  doubt. 

Dr.  Wright,  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  perceived  the 
blunder  committed  by  the  authors  of  the  Thirt3'-nine 
Articles  in  including  Esdras  III.  and  IV.  among  the 
•other  books  referred  to  as  uncanonical,  and  was  candid 
enough  to  say,  while  alluding  to  Article  VI. :  "  It  is  not, 
however,  altogether  correct  in  including  in  the  number 
of  books  thus  referred  to  by  St.  Jerome  as  read  by  the 
Church  the  third  and  fourth  books  of  Esdras.  These 
books  were  equally  rejected  by  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  by  Luther."  ^  The  critic  might  have  added,  "  The 
Pra3'er  of  Manasses  "  as  also  rejected  by  the  Church  of 
Rome.  The  same  learned  writer  has  not  failed  to  ob- 
serve, that  Article  VI.  is  directly  contradicted  in  two 
instances,  by  the  Church  of  England  in  her  homilies, 
and  in  a  third  instance  in  her  preface  to  the  book  of 

1  Kitto's  Cyclop.,  Vol.  I.,  557- 


550  The  Canon  of  t lie  Old  Testament. 

"Common  Prayer,"  the  very  volume  in  which  the  sixth  as 
well  as  the  rest  of  the  thirty -nine  Articles  ai-e  proposed 
as  a  creed  to  be  held  b}'  all  conscientious  Anglicans. 
"  In  the  first  book  of  Homilies,"  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"published  in  1547,  and  the  second  in  1560,  both  con- 
firmed by  the  thirty -fifth  Article,  of  1562,  the  deutero 
canonical  books  are  cited  as  'Scriptures,'  and  treated 
with  the  same  reverence  as  the  other  books  of  the 
Bible ;  and  in  the  preface  to  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  they  are  alluded  to  as  being  '  agreeable  to,  the 
Holy  Scriptures.'  '  In  an  article  on  the  Book  of  Judith 
Dr.  Wright  remarks  that  "'  Judith,  with  the  other  deu- 
tero canonical  books,  has  been  at  all  times  read  in  the 
Church,  and  lessons  are  taken  from  it  in  the  Church  of 
England  in  course."  "^  Elsewhere  he  says  that  "  Bel  and 
the  Dragon  is  read.  ...  in  the  Church  of  England  on 
the  23d  of  November,"  and  "  Susanna  is  read  in  the 
Anglican  Church  on  the  22d  of  November."  "  Discussing 
the  authority  of  the  Book  of  Tobias,  he  observes,  that 
"its  influence  is  still  manifest  in  the  Anglican  liturgical 
forms,  as  in  the  offertory  (Tobit.  iv.  7,  8);  also  in  the 
Litany,  '  ne  vindictam  sumas  de  peccatis  meis,  neque 
reminiscaris  delicta  mea,  vel  parentum  meorum.'  In 
the  preface  to  the  marriage  service  there  is  also  a  mani- 
fest allusion  to  Tob.  vi.  17,  according  to  the  Vulgate: 
Hi  qui  conjugium  ita  suscipiunt,  ut  Deum  a  se  et  a  sua 
mente  excludant,  et  suce  libidini  ita  vacant,  sicut  equus 
et  mulus,  quibus  non  est  intellectus.  "  Chaps,  i.,  ii.,  vii., 
and  viii.,  are  read  in  the  course  of  lessons.  It  has  been 
supposed  from  a  comparison  of  Rev.  xxi.  18  with  Tobit. 
xiii.  21,  22,  that  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse  must  have 
been  acquainted  with  the  book  of  Tobit."  * 

We  take  the  liberty  of  supplementing  Dr.  Wright's 
observations,  by  remarking  that  among  the  "  Tables  of 

'   Kitto's   Cyclop.     Ubaldi.     Introd.  Vol.  II.,  426.  Smith   The  O.  T.  in  the 
yewish  Church,  p.  172.  note  6,  p.  163. 
2  Eusebius  Hist.  Eccles.  Lib.  iv.  cap.  26. 


In  Protestant  Confessions  of  Faith.  551 

Lessons  of  Holy  Scripture  to  be  read  at  morning  and 
evening  prayer  throughout  the  year  "  '  by  all  Episcopa- 
lian ministers,  several  lessons  are  taken  from  Wisdom  and 
Ecclesiasticus ;  ministers  and    members    being    thus   en- 
couraged to  believe,  that  the  canonicity  of  these  books 
is  no  more  to  be  questioned  than  that  of  the  other  books, 
from  which  selections  are  made  for  morning  and  even- 
ing prayers.     If  ever  there  was  a  time  "  when  iniquity 
lied  to  itself,"  '  it  was  when  the   Articles  of  Religion 
and  the  Homilies  of  the  Anglican  Church  were  devised. 
For  the  books  just  mentioned,  though  used  in  the  service 
of  that  communion  indiscriminately  with  the  other  books 
of  the  Scripture,  as  we  have  just  seen,  and  even  desig- 
nated   "  Scripture  "   and    "  Holy    Scriptures  "    by    the 
authors  of  the  Anglican  formulas,  have  been  stigmatized 
"  apocryphal "  in  the  works  of  the  most  learned  Angli- 
can   divines,  and   in  the  Anglican   authorized   version. 
And  from  that  version  they  were,  as  we  have  seen,  at 
last  absolutely  excluded  by  an  arbitrary  decree  of  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.      The  victory  then 
gained    by  Scotch    Presbyterianism  over   effete  Angli- 
canism seems  to  have  been  so  crushing,  that  the  authors 
of  the  latest  revision  of  the  authorized  version  had  not 
the  courage  to  venture  a  single  allusion  to  the  Old  Tes- 
tament deutero  books.     The  consequence  has  been,  that 
at  this  moment  English  speaking  Protestants,  generally, 
know  as  little  about  these  books  as  if  they  had  never 
been  written,  or  as  if  they  had  not  at  all  times,  like  those 
still  retained  in  King  James's  Bible,  been,  as  inspired 
documents,  a  source  whence  Christian  writers  derived 
many  of  the  arguments  by  which  they  maintained  the 
cause    of    revealed    religion,   as    well   as   those    moral 

'  The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  and  Administration  of  the  Sacraments,  etc. 
According  to  the  tise  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States  of 
America.    New  York.  1845. 

-  Ps.  xxvi.  12. 


552  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

principles  which  served  as  stimulants  to  the  faith  and 
piety  of  those  who  professed  that  religion. 

The  Helvetic  Confession,  dated  March  i,  1566,  is  in  a 
great  measure  the  work  of  Beza,  the  successor  of  Calvin  ; 
and  of  Bullinger,  the  successor  of  Zuinglius.  It  thus  re- 
fers to  the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament :  "  We 
do  not  deny  that  certain  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  named  by  the  ancients  apocryphal,  by  others  ec- 
clesiastical, as  being  read  in  the  churches,  but  not  ad- 
duced for  authority  in  matters  of  belief  :  as  Augustine, 
in  the  i8th  book  of  the  City  of  God,  ch.  38th,  relates,  that 
the  names  of  the  books  of  certain  prophets  were  adduced 
in  the  Books  of  Kings,  but  adds  that  these  were  not  on 
the  Canon,  and  those  we  have  were  sufficient  for  piety." 
The  authors  of  this  confession,  whether  consciously  or 
otherwise,  seem  t©  have  misrepresented  St.  Augustine. 
It  is  not  to  the  deutero  books  that  he  refers,  but  to  books 
mentioned  in  "  the  history  of  the  kings  of  Judah  and 
Israel,"  as  the  Book  of  Nathan  the  Prophet,  the  Book  of  Gad 
the  Prophet,  and  others,  that  have  been  lost.  As  it  stands 
in  the  above  extracts,  the  statement  attributed  to  St. 
Augustine  is  none  of  his.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  why  his 
name  has  been  introduced  by  Bullinger  and  Co.,  unless 
for  the  purpose  of  inducing  their  deluded  followers  by  a 
fraudulent  appeal  to  his  authority  to  tear  the  deutero 
books  out  of  their  Old  Testament.  The  way  in  which  the 
authors  of  this  Confession  have  apparently  garbled  the 
words  of  the  Saint,  and  perverted  their  meaning,  would 
persuade  an  ordinary  reader  that  the  illustrious  Bishop 
of  Hippo  had  condemned  the  deutero  books  as  apoeryphal, 
or  designated  them  as  x^QvCiy  ecclesiastical :  whereas  he 
did  neither,  but  actually  placed  these  very  books  in  the 
same  rank  with  all  others  belonging  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment.* By  what  foul  means  does  error  attain  its  end  ! 
What  venerable  names  are  invoked  to  justify  the  muti- 

1  De  Doctrina  Christiana,  1.  ii.,  cap.  8. 


In  the  Protestant  Confessions  of  Faith.  5  5 :? 

lation  of  the  Canon  !  In  London  it  is  that  of  St.  Jerome  ; 
in  Geneva  and  Zurich,  that  of  St.  Augustine. 

The  Gallic  Confession— distinguishes  between  the 
proto  and  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  by  de- 
claring the  former  to  be  the  rule  and  standard  of  faitli, 
not  only  in  consequence  of  the  Church's  consent,  but  on 
account  of  the  testimony  and  intrinsic  persuasion  of  the 
Spirit,  by  whom  we  are  enabled  to  draw  a  distinction 
between  them  and  others  not  of  the  same  class,  which, 
though  useful,  are  not  such  as  can  establish  any  article 
of  faith.  Great  importance  was  generally  attached  at 
the  time  to  the  internal  suggestions  of  the  Spirit,  a 
method  of  argumentation  which  defied  the  assaults  of 
reason,  tradition,  and  even  Scripture  itself. 

The  Belgic  Confession, — like  the  preceding,  per- 
mits the  reading  of  the  deutero  books,  but  denies  that 
any  doctrine  can  be  proved  by  them. 

The  WaMensian  Confession — also  makes  a  marked  dis- 
tinction between  the  proto  and  deutero  books  of  the 
Old  Testament.  This  Confession  was  once  supposed  to 
have  been  written  as  early  as  11 20.  But  it  has  been 
shown  to  have  been  the  work  of  a  Protestant,  about  1520. 
Dr.  Davidson  admits  that  "  It  is  not  genuine,"  '  a  polite 
way  of  saying  it  is  2i  forgery.  Forgery  was  one  of  those 
arts  in  which  the  reformers  attained  such  remarkable 
proficiency,  as  to  baffle  until  recently  the  efforts  of  the 
most  expert  detectives.  In  fact,  Reuss  confesses  that  the 
"  confession"  in  which  the  Waldensians  are  made  to  say. 
that  they  drew  a  distinction  between  the  proto  and 
deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  is  "  forged."  '  Be- 
sides Davidson  has  proved,  that  "the  Canon  of  the 
Waldensians  must  have  coincided  at  first  with  that  of  the 
Roman  Church." 

1  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Article  Canon. 

^  History  0/ the  Canon  of  the  Holy  Saipttires,  p.  264. 

3   The  Canon  of  the  Bible,  p.  241. 


554  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  Confession  of  the  DuteJi  Churches — dated  1566,  after 
enumerating  the  books  which  alone  Protestants  gener- 
ally consider  canonical,  and  "respecting  which  no  con- 
troversy existed,  "  adds:  "We  make  a  distinction  be- 
tween them  and  such  as  are  called  apocryphal,  which 
may  indeed  be  read  in  the  church,  and  proofs  adduced 
from  them,  so  far  as  they  agree  with  the  canonical  books  ; 
but  their  authority  and  force  are  by  no  means  such  that 
any  article  of  faith  may  be  certainly  declared  from  their 
testimony  alone,  still  less  that  they  can  impugn  or 
detract  from  the  authority  of  the  others."  Then,  as- 
signing a  reason  why  they  consider  the  other  books 
canonical,  the  authors  of  this  confession  say  that  "  it  is 
not  so  much  because  the  Church  receives  them,  as  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  testifies  to  our  consciences  that  they 
have  come  from  God  ;  and  chiefly  on  this  account,  be- 
cause they  of  themselves  bear  testimony  to  their  own 
authority  and  sanctity,  so  that  the  blind  may  see  the 
fulfilment  of  all  things  predicted  in  them  as  it  were  with 
the  senses."  Those  Dutchmen  must  have  been  much 
more  sharp-sighted  than  most  readers  then  or  since. 

The  West7Jiinster  Confession — was  the  result  of  a  com- 
promise between  a  number  of  pious,  godly,  and  judicious 
divines,  as  they  were  called,  composed  of  Presbyterians, 
Puritans,  and  Independents,  whom  the  Lords  and  Com- 
mons of  the  British  Parliament  in  1643  selected  to  meet 
at  Westminster  "  for  the  settling  of  the  government  and 
the  liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England."  Episcopalians 
were  also  invited  to  take  part  in  the  deliberations,  but 
they  declined  to  do  so,  probably  suspecting  that,  as  the 
result  proved,  an  assembly  influenced  by  such  strong 
Calvinistic  tendencies  as  the  members  were  known  to 
possess  generally,  would  deal  a  death  blow,  not  only  to 
what  was  then  denounced  as  popery  and  idolatry,  but  to 
prelacy,  superstition,  the  Anglican  Liturgy,  and  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer.     The  dissensions  that  pre- 


In  the  Protestant  Confessions  of  rait h.  555 

vailed  at  the  convention  were  so  grave  and  numerous, 
that  its  labors  were  not  concluded  until  1652.  It  was  in 
1646  that  the  godly  divines  completed  what  they  called 
their  "  Confession  of  Faith."  After  enumerating:  the 
books  commonly  received  as  canonical  by  Protestants, 
but  ascribing  only  thirteen  epistles  to  St.  Paul,  these 
Westminster  theologians  proceed  to  say  that  "  the 
books  called  Apocrypha,  not  being  of  Divine  confirma- 
tion, are  no  part  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture ;  and  there- 
fore are  of  no  authority  in  the  Church  of  God  ;  nor  to 
be  any  otherwise  approved,  or  made  use  of,  than  other 
human  writings."  Then,  expounding  the  reasons,  for 
which  their  canonical  books  were  to  be  received  as  the 
Word  of  God,  they  declare  that  "  the  authority  of  Holy 
Scripture,  for  which  it  ought  to  be  believed  and  obeyed, 
dependeth  not  on  the  testimony  of  any  man  or  church, 
but  wholly  upon  God,  the  author  thereof:  and  therefore 
it  is  to  be  received,  because  it  is  the  Word  of  God.  We 
may  be  moved  and  induced  by  the  Church  to  a  high 
and  reverent  esteem  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  and  the 
heavenliness  of  the  matter,  the  efficacy  of  the  doctrine, 
the  majesty  of  the  style,  etc.,  are  arguments  whereby  it 
doth  abundantly  evidence  itself  to  be  the  Word  of  God  ; 
yet,  notwithstanding,  our  full  persuasion  and  assurance 
of  the  infallible  truth  and  Divine  authority  thereof  is 
from  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  being  witness 
by  and  with  the  w^ord  in  our  hearts." 

Here  we  have  simply  the  Dutch  manifesto  intensified. 
The  Westminster  deliverance  amounts  to  this:  "the 
Scriptures  are  the  Word  of  God,  because  they  are  the 
Word  of  God  ;  "  and  if  this  argument  will  not  produce 
conviction  on  the  ungodly,  tell  all  such  reprobates  that 
"  the  Holy  Spirit  declares  to  the  inward  man,  the  Bible 
is  the  pure  Word  of  God,  and  no  mistake."  The  men, 
who  drew  up  the  preceding  exposition  of  belief  regard- 
ing the  Scriptures,  must  have  had  unbounded  confidence 


556  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

in  the  credulity  of  their  followers ;  and  the  latter  must 
have  placed  themselves  outside  the  pale  of  reason,  so 
far  as  the  credentials  of  the  Bible  were  concerned,  when 
they  believed  what  had  been  declared  by  their  leaders 
at  Westminster  on  the  subject.  In  fact,  by  pursuing-  the 
same  line  of  argument,  the  disciples  of  Mahomet  could 
have  no  difficulty  in  proving,  at  least  to  themselves,  that 
the  Koran  is  a  divine  revelation.  Nor,  when  our  dis- 
senting brethren  are  seriously  told  by  their  teachers, 
that  the  Bible  is  proved  to  be  the  Word  of  God  by  the 
application  of  such  texts  as  those  recommended  by  the 
Westminster  divines,  need  we  be  surprised  on  learning, 
that  the  Apostolical  Canons  and  Constitutions,  with  the 
various  liturgies  ascribed  to  St.  Peter,  St.  Mark,  etc., 
were  considered  by  two  such  learned  Protestant  schol- 
ars as  William  Whiston  and  John  Ernest  Grabe  to  be  of 
equal  authority  with  anything  the  inspired  Apostles 
ever  wrote.*  Yet  the  formula,  in  which  the  Westmins- 
ter theologians  declared  their  reasons  for  maintaining 
that  some  books  are  "  divine"  and  others  "human,"  is 
substantially  identical  with  that  put  forward  by  the 
Dutch,  French,  Belgian,  Bohemian,  Scotch,  and  other 
Protestant  Churches, ""  and  appears  to  have  been  adopted 
word  by  word  by  Presbyterians  of  all  shades  and  colors 
throughout  the  New  as  well  as  the  Old  World. 

The  period  that  witnessed  the  production  of  those 
startling  manifestos,  was  specially  characterized  by  the- 
ories regarding  the  nature,  purpose,  and  use  of  the 
Scriptures,  which  no  Protestant  scholar  would  now  un- 
dertake to  defend.  Prominent  among  those  theories 
was  one,  according  to  which  everything  in  the  Bible,  as 
it  then  stood,  was  to  be  received  by  those,  with  whom 
that  volume  was  the  sole  rule  of  faith,  as  the  work  of 
God  Himself.     Thus  the  Siviss  Declaration  of  1675  in- 

1  Kitto's  Cyclop.,  vol.,  I.,  p.  177. 

"•'■  Vide  Reuss,  History  of  the  Canon  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  ch.  xvi. 


In  the  Protestant  Confessions  of  Faith.  557 

sists  that  ''  the  Hebrew  Volume  of  the  Old  Testament, 
which  we  have  received  from  the  tradition  of  the  Jew- 
ish Church,  to  which  formerly  the  oracles  of  God  were 
committed,  and  retain  at  the  present  day,  both  in  its 
consonants,  and  in  its  vowels. — the  points  themselves,  or 
at  least  the  force  of  the  points, — and  both  in  its  sub- 
stance and  in  its  words  is  divinely  inspired,  so  that,  to- 
gether with  the  volume  of  the  New  Testament,  it  is  the 
single  and  uncorrupted  Rule  of  our  faith  and  life,  by 
whose  standard,  as  by  a  touch-stone,  all  Versions  which 
exist,  whether  Eastern  or  Western,  must  be  tried,  and 
wherever  they  var}^  be  made  conformable  to  it."  '  Those 
who  proposed  and  advocated  this  crude  theorv  did  not 
know,  that  every  single  autograph  of  every  book  be- 
longing to  the  Old  Testament  had  disappeared  long 
before  the  Christian  era.  They  were  ignorant  of  the 
labor  expended  on  the  sacred  text  by  the  Masoretic 
doctors,  and  they  of  course  took  no  account  of  the  varia- 
tions to  be  found  in  that  text  as  well  as  in  that  of  the 
New  Testament,  the  books  of  which  as  originallv  written 
had  also  disappeared,  not  very  long  after  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Christian  era ;  another  fact  of  which  the 
authors  of  the  Siviss  Deelaration  appear  to  have  been 
ignorant.  That  deliverance  of  course  has  long  since 
failed  to  find  an  advocate  among  Protestant  scholars. 

In  fact  there  is  hardly  one  of  the  Confessions  of  Faith 
enumerated  above,  that  would  find  at  this  day  among 
the  sects,  which  first  adopted  them,  a  single  educated  in- 
dividual disposed  to  defend  all  the  doctrines  enumer- 
ated therein.  The  Westminster  Confession  has  probab- 
ly met,  all  along,  with  more  hearty  adherence  among 
the  various  branches  of  the  Presbyterian  denomination 
than  any  other.  Yet,  at  this  writing,  arrangements  are 
being  made,  which  propose  to  eliminate  from  that  creed 
its  distinctively  Calvinistic  elements. 

1  Westcott,  The  Bible  in  the  Church,  p.  278. 


558  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstanieiit. 

Along  with  other  changes,  which  advanced  scholar- 
ship and  sounder  criticism  have  produced  in  these  con- 
fessions, is  that  in  reference  to  the  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Among  the  latest  and  most  progressive 
thinkers  on  this  subject  may  be  reckoned  Westcott  and 
Davidson  of  England.  Each  represents  a  large  and 
influential  school  of  critics,  one  among  the  members  of 
the  establishment,  and  the  other  among  the  non-con- 
formists. The  former  in  summing  up  the  testimony  of 
the  Eastern  Church  in  regard  to  the  canon,  asserts  that 
there  the  Book  of  '^Esther,  indeed  was  on  the  whole  less 
supported  than  Baruch,  "  '  and  while  stating  the  general 
conclusion,  to  which  patristic  evidence  leads,  he  repeats 
this  statement  thus  :  "  Indeed,  on  the  whole,  if  Christian 
evidence  alone  be  taken,  it  appears  that  there  is  less  ev- 
idence for  the  reception  of  this  Book  [Esther]  as  canon- 
ical in  the  fullest  sense,  than  for  the  reception  of 
Baruch.'"^  Davidson  goes  so  far  as  to  recommend  a 
readjustment  of  the  Protestant  canon,  and  while  doing 
so  declares  that  "  Esther  and  Ecclesiastes  cannot  be 
put  above  Wisdom,  ist  Maccabees,  Judith,  Baruch,  or 
Ecclesiasticus.  The  doctrine  of  immortality,  clearly 
expressed  in  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  is  not  in  Ecclesiast- 
es ;  neither  is  God  once  named  in  the  Book  of  Esther 
as  author  of  the  marvellous  deliverances,  which  the 
chosen  people  are  said  to  have  experienced.  The  his- 
tory narrated  in  ist  Maccabees  is  more  credible  than 
that  in  Esther.  It  is  therefore  misleading  to  mark  off 
all  apocryphal  (deutero)  books  as  Jiuman  and  all  canoni- 
cal (proto)  ones  as  divined  ^  Of  the  canon  received  by 
modern  Jews  and  their  Protestant  scholars  he  asserts 
that  "  It  was  not. . .  .  universally  received  even  by  the 
Jews;  for  Esther  was  omitted  out  of  it  by  those  from 
whom  Melito  got  his  catalogue  in  Palestine;  while  Sirach 

'    The  Bible  in  the  Church,  p.  243.  "  Ibid.  p.  294. 

^   The  Canon  of  the  Bible,  pp.  232,  263. 


In  the  Protestant  Confessions  of  Faith.  559 

was  annexed  to  it  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century.  Baruch  was  also  added  in  several  Jewish 
circles,  doubtless  on  account  of  its  supposed  authorship. 
Thus  'the  pure  Hebrew  canon'  was  not  one  and  the 
same  among  all  Jews;  and  therefore  the  phrase  is  mis- 
leading     A  stereotyped  canon  of  the  Old  Testament, 

either  among  Jews  or  Christians  of  the  first  four  cen- 
turies, which  excluded  all  the  Apocryphal  (deutero) 
books  and  included  all  the  canonical  (proto)  ones  can- 
not be  shown."  ' 

1   The  Canon  of  the  Bible,  pp.  265,  266. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 


Protestant  critics  on  the  Protestant  plan  for 

SETTLING  THE  CaNON  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

An  advocate  of  the  Tridentine  Canon  may  well  be 
spared  the  necessity  of  proving,  that  the  Westminster 
formula  is  dangerous  because  it  fosters  fanaticism,  and 
absurd  because  it  conflicts  with  the  plainest  dictates  of 
reason,  for  all  this  has  been  done  already,  strange  to 
say,  by  critics,  who  accepted  the  Protestant  Canon. 
Thus  Jeremiah  Jones,  a  dissenting  English  minister, 
distinguished  among  his  countrymen  for  his  biblical 
knowledge,  denounced,  about  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century,  the  irrational  principle  on  which  the  creed 
makers  proposed  to  determine  what  books  of  the  Script- 
ure were  canonical,  and  what  Apocrj'phal.  The  occa- 
sion to  do  so  presented  itself  to  him,  while  engaged  on 
A  Nezv  and  Full  Method  of  settling  the  Canonical  authority 
of  the  New  Testament.  After  admitting  '  that  "  though 
there  are  considerable  difficulties  relating  to  the  Canon 

of  the  Old  Testament these  are  solved  with  much 

more  ease  than  those  of  the  New,"  he  thus  continues. 

"  Can  it  be  supposed,  that  out  of  a  hundred  books,  or, 
as  we  may  well  suppose  out  of  ten  thousand,  (for  the 
argument  will  be  just  the  same  with  the  largest  assign- 
able number)  that  private  Christians,  or  even  our  most 
learned  reformers,  should  by  an  internal  evidence  agree 
precisely  on  the  number  of  twenty-seven,  which  are  now 
esteemed  canonical,  induced  thereto  by  some  characters 

1    Vol.   I.,   pp.  2,  3. 

560 


Hoiv  settled  by  Protestants.  561 

those  books  contain,  of  their  bcincr  written  by  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  Holy  Ghost?"  ■  This  he  conceives  to  be 
''  folly  and  madness,"  and  an  assumption  of  "  immediate 
inspiration."  =  "  It  first  supposes  the  books  are  inspired, 
and  then  proves  that  they  are  so,  because  they  are  so. 
'  This  is  only  an  argument  says  '  Bishop  Burnet,  =  '  to  him 
that  feels  it,  if  it  be  one  at  all."  '  "It  is,"  says  Mr.  Jones, 
"  not  so  easy  a  matter,  as  is  commonly  imagined  rightly 
to  settle  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament.  For  my 
own  part,  I  declare,  with  many  learned  men,  that  in  the 
whole  compass  of  learning,  I  know  no  question  involved 
with  more  intricacies  and  perplexing  difficulties  than 
this."  "  "  If  the  question,"  adds  Mr.  Jones, "  be  why  Barn- 
abas's  Epistle  be  rejected,  and  Jude's  received— why 
the  Gospel  of  Peter  is  excluded  and  the  Epistle  of  Peter 
admitted  into  the  Canon  as  the  word  of  God,  etc.,  alas ! 
how  little  shall  we  have  given  in  answer,  unless  what 
Baxter  says,  '  We  believe  as  the  Church  does' "  " 

This  Richard  Baxter,  another  learned  dissenting  Eng- 
lish minister,  who  wrote  about  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  also  undertook  to  discuss  the  same  question, 
and  here  are  some  of  the  conclusions  at  which  he  arrived. 
Speaking  of  those  opposed  to  his  plan  of  settling  the 
canon  by  human  testimony  and  tradition  he  says,  "  I 
would  have  the  contrary-minded  tell  me  how  they 
know,  without  human  testimony  and  tradition,  that 
these  are  the  same  books  which  the  prophets  and  apos- 
tles wrote,  and  wholly  the  same;  that  they  are  not  de- 
praved and  wilfully  corrupted;  that  these  are  all  ?  How 
know  you  that  one  of  the  books  of  Esther  is  canonical 
and  the  other  apocryphal  ?  Where  is  the  man  that  ever 
knew  the  canon  from  the  apocryphal  before  it  was  told 
him,  and  without  tradition.'  I  confess,  for  my  own 
part,  I  could  never  boast  of  any  such  testimony  or  light 

'  Ibid.  p.  48.  ^  Ibid.  p.  49,  seq.  3  Anglican  (d.  1709). 

*  Ibid.  p.  51.  s  iijij,  p_  2.  «  Ibid.  p.  15. 


562  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Tcstaincnt. 

of  the  Spirit,  nor  reason  neither,  which,  without  human 
testimony  or  tradition  would  have  made  me  believe 
that  the  Book  of  Canticles  is  canonical  and  written  by 
Solomon,  and  the  Book  of  Wisdom  apocryphal  and 
written  by  Philo,  as  some  think;  or  that  Paul's  Epistle 
to  the  Laodiceans — which  you  may  see  in  Bruno,  in 
Epist.  Sixtus  Senensis—and  others,  is  apocryphal,  and 
the  second  and  third  epistles  of  John,  canonical.  Nor 
could  I  have  known  all  or  any  historical  books,  such  as 
Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  Kings,  Chronicles,  Ezra, 
Nehemiah,  etc.,  to  be  written  by  divine  inspiration,  but 
by  tradition."  Baxter's  plan  is  more  rational,  less  dan- 
gerous, but  not  more  conclusive  than  that  of  his  adver- 
saries. Mere  human  tradition  can  never  settle  the 
canon  of  Scripture.  But  Baxter  had  a  good  deal  more 
common  sense  than  those  who  advocated  internal  il- 
lumination !  as  the  following  extract  from  his  work 
shows.  "  Further,  1  would  know,  how  doth  an  illiterate 
man  know  but  by  human  testimony :  whether  it  be  in- 
deed a  Bible  that  the  minister  reads?  or  when  he  reads 
true,  and  when  false?  And  whether  any  of  these  words 
be  in  the  Bible  which  men  say  are  in  it?  or  that  it  is 
truly  translated  out  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  ?  or  that 
it  was  originally  written  in  those  languages?  or  that 
copies  were  authentic  out  of  which  they  were  trans- 
lated," '  Baxter  might  have  asked  himself  or  any  of 
his  learned  Protestant  contemporaries  many  of  the  same 
questions,  and  yet  would  have  failed  to  give  or  to  receive 
such  answers  as  a  rational  and  conscientious  enquirer 
after  truth  would  have  exacted.  One  more  extract  from 
Baxter^  will  be  appreciated  by  the  reader,  as  a  well  de- 
served thrust  at  all,  who  substituted  another  canon  for 
the  one,  which  was  followed  everywhere  east  and  west 
until  the  reformation.    "  It  is  strange  to  consider  how  we 

1  Saints  Everlasting  Rest,  p.  141.  New  York.  1855. 

2  Ibid.  p.  142. 


Hozv  settled  by  Protestants.  563 

all  abhor  that  piece  of  popery  as  most  injurious  to  God 
of  all  the  rest,  which  resolves  our  faith  into  the  authority 
of  the  church,  and  yet  that  wc  do,  for  the  generality  of 
professors  content  ourselves  with  the  same  kind  of  faith. 
Only  with  this  difference ;  the  papists  believe  Scripture 
to  be  the  Word  of  God,  because  their  church  saith  so; 
and  we,  because    our  church  or  our  leaders  say  so."' 
Poor  Baxter  was  unable  or  unwilling  to  recognize  the 
difference  between  the  papist  and  the  protestant  in  this 
matter.     The  former  believes  the  Scripture  to  be  the 
Word  of  God  on  what  is  to  him  the  divine  authority  of 
the   Church.     The   latter    believes  the  same  thing    on 
what  he  knows  to  be  simply  human  testimony.     That 
is,  both  try  to  reach  a  divine  truth,  the  one  by  divine, 
the  other  by  human  means.     And  both  admit  that  the 
point   aimed  at,  lies   in  the  supernatural   order.     The 
protestant,  therefore,  as  well  as  the  papist  must  perceive 
that  that  point,  if  grasped  at  all,  must  be  grasped  by 
means  entirely  different  from  those,  by  which  scientific 
truth  is  attained;  and  consequently,  that  if  he  is  ever  to 
believe  as  he  ought,  that   God  is  the   author  of   the 
Scriptures,  he  must  do  that,  not  on  the  testimony  of  his 
Church  or  his  teachers,  but  on  the  divine  assurance  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  that  such  is  the  case.     Hence  St. 
Augustine  referring  to  this  subject  declared  :  "  I,  for  my 
part,  would  not  beheve  the  Gospel,  unless  the  authority 
of  the  Catholic  Church  moved  me  to  it."  '     Take  away 
the  divine  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  you 
make  Christianity  at  most  the  best  system  of  religion 
that  was  ever  devised  by  man.     When  a  papist  says,  I 
believe  my  church  is  infallible,  and  because  she  says  so, 
I  believe  the  Scripture  to  be  the  Word  of  God;  his  logic 
is   unimpeachable.     Grant  the  premiss  and  you   must 
accept   his  conclusion ;    deny  that   premiss  and    Chris- 

1  Ibid.  p.  161. 

2  Contra  Ep.  Man.  quatn  vacant  Fimdatnenti,  c.  v. 


564  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Tcstajucnt. 

tianit}'  for  you  ceases  to  be  divine.  But  when  a  Protest- 
ant declares,  as  he  must,  I  consider  my  church,  my 
teachers,  even  my  own  reason  all  fallible ;  yet  it  is  be- 
cause one  or  other  of  these  or  all  of  them  say  so,  that  I 
believe  the  Scriptures  to  be  the  very  Word  of  God ;  it 
requires  no  mental  effort  to  perceive,  that  his  creed  is 
an  unproved  and  unprovable  religious  theor}^  of  which 
his  teachers  are  the  professors ;  and  that  the  process  by 
which  he  has  reached  his  conclusion  regarding  the  ori- 
gin of  the  Bible,  is  not  only  illogical,  but  flagrantly 
absurd. 

Robert  Barclay,  a  celebrated  Scotch  Quaker,  (d.  1690), 
declared  that  "  It  is  impossible  to  prove  the  canon  by 
the  Scriptures,  for  it  cannot  be  found  in  anv  book  of  the 
Scriptures,  that  these  books  and  just  these  and  no  others 
are  canonical,  as  all  are  forced  to  acknoAvledge."  ' 

According  to  Richard  Baxter,^  Doctor  John  Whita- 
ker,  an  Anglican  minister  (d.  1808),  held  "  that  it  belongs 
to  the  Church  :  i.  To  be  a  witness  and  keeper  of  the 
Scriptures  ;  2.  To  judge  and  discern  between  Scriptures 
which  are  true  and  genuine,  and  which  are  false,  super- 
stitious, and  apocryphal ;  3.  To  divulge  them  ;  4.  To 
expound  them."  Whitaker  was  one  of  several  English 
Protestant  controversialists,  who  wrote  against  the  cele- 
brated Father  Stapleton.  But  he  seems  to  have  been 
one  of  those  remarkable  scholars,  who  actually  stumble 
over  the  truth  without  apparently  recognizing  it.  Such 
men  have  been  met  with  in  all  Protestant  countries, 
advancing  step  by  step  to  the  very  threshold  of  the 
sanctuar}- ,  but  without  the  courage,  it  may  be  the  grace, 
to  cross  it.  On  the  other  hand  great  numbers  of  Prot- 
estants belonging  to  every  rank  and  profession,  faithful 
to  the  call  of  God  and  regardless  of  all  human  consider- 

'  Apology^  prop,  iii.,  §  ix.,  p.  92.  London  Edition,  1780. 
*  Saints  Everlasting  Rest.  141. 


Hozv  settled  by  Protestants.  565 

ations,  have  sought  and  found  in  the  Churcli  relief  from 
those  perplexing  doubts  and  that  dreadful  uncertaintv. 
with  which  all  honest  inquirers  are  haunted  in  the  sects. 
Of  these  converts  not  a  few,  after  having  labored  faitli- 
fuUy  in  the  Protestant  ministry,  have,  when  received 
into  the  Church  remained  ever  after  content  and  happy 
with  the  lot  assigned  them  among  the  laity.  Othei-s  of 
the  same  class,  after  being  promoted  to  Hoi}'  Orders, 
have  as  members  of  the  priesthood  or  of  the  hierarchv 
rendered  invaluable  service  to  religion  by  their  great 
learning  and  untiring  zeal;  while  of  all  of  them  it  may 
be  generally  said  that  they  have  proved  the  sincerity  of 
their  conversion  by  their  piety,  their  fervor,  and  their 
unflinching  constancy  to  the  true  faith. 

The  humiliating  admissions  made  by  Jones,  Baxter. 
Barcla}'  and  others,  were  no  doubt  wrung  from  them 
by  the  absurd,  fanatical,  and  criminal  proceedings  of 
those,  who,  as  directed  by  the  reformed  creeds  and  con- 
fessions, undertook  to  discriminate  between  canonical 
and  apocryphal  writings,  reh'ing  either  on  their  own 
reason,  or  the  pretended  guidance  of  the  Spirit.  For 
none  of  those  creeds  or  confessions  indicates  any  other 
way  of  ascertaining  the  canon.  Even  the  most  conserva- 
tive of  all  Protestant  sects — the  Anglican — left  each 
individual  to  decide  the  matter  for  himself.  For  though, 
in  its  VI.  Article,  it  told  him  what  were  and  were  not 
canonical  books,  and  in  its  XX.  article,  that  it  had  "all 
authority  in  controversies  of  faith  ;  "  it  did  not  assure 
him  that  no  mistake  could  be  committed  in  the  exercise 
of  that  "  authority,"  or  that  it  itself  could  not  err.  In- 
deed, how  could  it  gi\x  him  such  an  assurance,  after 
saving  in  its  XIX  Article  :  ''As  the  Church  oijenisalew. 
Alexandria,  and  Antioch  have  erred,  so  also  the  Church 
of  Ro7nc  hath  erred  ...  in  matters  of  faith."  with  such 
iDClief  as  this,  of  course  the  godly  authors  of  the  thirty- 
nine  articles  were  too  modest  to  claim  infallibility  for 


566  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstamejit. 

the  Church  over  which  Queen  Elizabeth  presided ;; 
neither  dared  they  assure  the  members  of  that  Church 
that  the  time  would  never  come,  when  it  would  be  seen 
that  "  controversies  of  faith  "  among  Anglican  Christians 
should  be  settled  not  by  convocation  or  council,  but  by 
a  tribunal  consisting  of  laymen  appointed  by  the  crown. 
Any  one  therefore  belonging  to  the  Established  Church 
of  England,  if  he  had,  as  well  might  be  the  case,  cause 
to  suspect  that  the  enumeration  of  canonical  books  con- 
tained in  his  Book  of  Common  Prayer  was  defective 
could  only  allay  his  suspicions  if  at  all,  like  any  other 
Protestant,  either  by  the  exercise  of  his  own  reason  or  by 
the  inward  light  ot  the  Spirit. 

Indeed  the  Spirit  served  as  a  sort  of  last  ditch,  to 
which  the  early  Protestants  fled,  when  driven  from 
every  other  position  taken  in  order  to  defend  the  au- 
thority of  the  Scriptures,  or  to  prove  what  they  believed 
to  be  its  component  parts.  Thus  Reuss  '  a  Protestant 
writer,  shows  from  Calvin's  own  words,  that  that  stern 
reformer  founded  "  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  on 
the  inner  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  "  and  held  that 
the  sentiment,  that  "  the  Scriptures  were  given  us 
from  the  very  mouth  of  God  ....  can  be  produced  only 
by  celestial  revelations !  "  That  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  was  accompanied  by  such  "  revelations," 
Calvin  is  shown  by  the  extract  which  Reuss  has  taken 
from  his  writings,  to  have  had  no  doubt.  This  belief  is 
still  held  by  many  Protestants.  Indeed  it  should  be 
held  by  all  of  them,  if  consistent.  For  it  is  either  di- 
rectly expressed,  or  is  clearly  implied  in  all  those  con- 
fessions of  faith  which  have  bejsn  formulated  by  their 
leaders  and  published  for  their  guidance.  But  let  us 
suppose  that  an  earnest  Protestant  enquirer,  whatever 
his  sect,  has  with  the  light  of  the  "  Spirit,"  or  of  those 
"  celestial  revelations  "  mentioned  by  Calvin,  solved  to- 

'  History  of  the  Canon  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  p.  302. 


Hoiv  settled  by  Protestants.  567 

his  own  satisfaction  all  the  difficulties  connected  with 
the  origin  and  the  canon  of  Scripture  ;  how  is  he,  let  us 
ask,  even  if  he  be  not  illiterate,  to  ascertain  the  sense  of 
all  contained  in  the  canonical  books  ?  In  other  words 
how  is  he  to  construct  for  himself  a  system  of  religion, 
out  of  what  he  finds  in  these  books  ?  In  undertakina: 
such  a  task,  one  as  difficult  as  it  is  important,  and  one 
which  no  Protestant  possessed  of  any  self-respect  and 
independence  will  shirk,  what  is  there  to  guide  or  assist 
him  in  reaching  a  safe  position  ?  The  answer  must  be  : 
The  Scripture  itself  stripped  of  all  note  or  comment,  a 
mere  translation  of  the  original  Hebrew  and  Gj-eek  made 
into  his  own  vernacular,  by  one,  who  for  all  we  know 
may  have  been  incompetent  for  such  a  work.  This  is 
actually  what  "the  Presbyterian  Church"  tells  its  mem- 
bers. For  in  the  "  Confession  of  Faith,"  which  that 
denomination  has  adopted  for  its  people,  they  are  in- 
formed that  "  The  infallible  rule  of  interpretation  of 
Scripture  is  the  Scripture  itself,'  '  and  that  "  The  su- 
preme Judge,  by  which  all  controversies  of  religion  are 
to  be  determined  ....  can  be  no  other  but  the  Holy 
Spirit  speaking  in  the  Scriptures."  '' 

1   The  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  14.  '  Ibid. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 


Luther  on  the  Scripture — Hallam  on  Luther. 
Gaussen  on  the  Canon. 

A  mere  glance  at  the  condition  of  the  Protestant 
world  now,  or  at  any  time  since  the  Reformation,  will 
convince  an}^  one  that  the  principle  "  by  which  all  con- 
troversies of  religion,"  according  to  preceding  extracts 
from  the  constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  "  are 
to  be  determined,"  '  of  course  whether  these  contro- 
versies regard  the  canon  of  Scripture  or  any  other  ques- 
tion, is  flagrantly  insufficient.  It  is,  besides,  false  and  ab- 
solutely impracticable,  a  fact  proved  by  the  conduct  of 
those  who  profess  to  be  guided  by  it.  For,  let  a  member 
of  any  Protestant  sect  declare,  that  after  making  "  a  due 
use  of  the  ordinary  means  "^  prescribed  ^  for  attaining 
^' a  sufficient  understanding  of  the  Scriptures," ''he  is  com- 
pelled in  conscience  to  adopt  a  doctrine  condemned  by 
his  sect,  he  is  at  once  excommunicated.  Yet  this  insuffi- 
cient, false,  and  impracticable  principle  underlies  the 
creed  of  every  Protestant  sect  throughout  the  world ; 
and  was  as  soon  as  he  abandoned  his  cloister  boldly  pro- 
claimed by  the  father  and  founder  of  Protestantism, 
Martin  Luther.  This  has  been  shown  b}'  Catholic  writ- 
ers who  lived  near  his  own  time.  We  thus  know  that 
among  his  first  errors,  he  taught  that  "  the  Scripture  was 
the  most  certain,  most  easv,  most  evident,  and  most  clear 
interpreter  of  itself :  "  '  and  that  "  the  right  to  interpret 

1  TheConstitutio-.iof  the  Presbyterian  Churchy  p. \if    '^Ibid.  p.  12.    '  ibid. 
■*  The  Larger  Catechism,  q.  157.  ^  Bellarmin  De  verba  Dei  cap,  i. 

508 


LutJicrs  FiltJiiiicss. — Gausscn  on  the  Canon.         569 

the  Scripture  has  been  granted  to  the  laitv  as  well  as 
the  learned."  '  Yet  the  fatal  fruits  which  this  perni- 
cious principle  soon  produced  in  Germany,  gave  Luther 
good  reason  to  contradict  his  own  teaching,  as  he  after- 
wards actually  did,  but  without  cither  being  ashamed 
of  his  own  inconsistency,  or  confounded  at  the  sight  of 
the  dreadful  disorders  in  which  his  diabolical  doctrines 
had  involved  his  unhappy  countr}-. 

In  Luther's  life,  as  written  by  Audin  and  other  Cath- 
olic authors  who  had  occasion  to  refer  to  it,  will  be 
found  various  specimens  of  that  reformer's  teaching 
which  caused  untold  mischief  wherever  they  were  in- 
troduced. For  the  information,  however,  of  tl  e  general 
reader,  who  mav  desire  to  know  something  about  the 
distinctive  features  of  Luther's  system,  it  is  better  to 
overlook  here  what  has  been  said  on  the  subject  bv 
Catholic  writers,  and  consult  the  work  of  an  author, 
who,  as  a  Protestant,  cannot  be  suspected  of  exaggera- 
tion when  exposing  the  dangerous  principles  inculcated 
by  the  man  who  is  justly  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the 
religious  system,  on  which  all  Protestant  creeds  are 
based. 

Henry  Hallam,  L.L.D.,  an  English  Protestant  born  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  educated  at  Oxford, 
and  considered  "  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  mod- 
ern authors,"  '  had  been  fiercely  assailed  by  the  admir- 
ers of  Luther  for  certain  remarks  he  had  made  about 
that  reformer  in  his  Literature  of  Europe.  Tie  therefore, 
in  the  subsequent  editions  of  that  work,  felt  himself 
called  upon  to  defend  the  views  he  had  already  ex- 
pressed regarding  Luther.  This  he  does  by  bringing 
forward  certain  extracts  from  Luther's  own  writings. 
Referring  to  Luther's  treatise,  De  Captivitate  Babylonis. 
he  presents  the  following  quotations  from  it :    "  Thus 

1  Nat.  Aldxatider,  Hist.  Eccl.  Tom.  viii.  p.  103. 

2  AUibonis  D.ictionarv  of  Authors. 


570  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

joii  see  how  rich  a  man  is  who  is  a  Christian  and  bap- 
tized, who  even  should  he  so  wish  cannot  lose  his  salva- 
tion, however  great  his  sins  may  be,  unless  he  refuses 
to  believe.  For  no  sins  can  damn  him,  unless  unbelief 
alone.  All  other  sins,  if  faith  in  the  divine  promise 
made  to  one  baptized  returns  or  remains,  are  cancelled 
in  a  moment  by  the  same  faith,  3'ea  by  the  verity  of  God  ; 
because  he  cannot  deny  Himself,  if  you  have  confessed 
Him  and  adhered  faithfuU}'  to  Him  promising."  More 
of  the  same  horrible  doctrine  :  "  If  adultery  could  be 
committed  in  faith,  it  would  not  be  a  sin." — Disput. 
1520.  And  more  still:  "It  is  sufficient  (Luther  says) 
that  by  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  God  we  acknowledge 
the  Lamb  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world ;  from 
Him  sin  shall  not  separate  us,  even  if  we  commit  forni- 
cation and  murder  a  thousand,  thousand  times  in  one 
day.  Do  you  think  that  the  price  paid  and  the  redemp- 
tion made  for  our  sins  is  so  great,  and  such  a  lamb  is  so 
little  ?  Pray  boldly,  for  you  are  the  boldest  sinner." 
What  wonder  that  Mr.  Hallam  should  confess  that  "  all 
his  (Luther's)  notions  about  sin  and  merit  were  so  pre- 
posterously contradictory  to  natural  morality  and  relig- 
ion, that  they  could  not  have  been  permanently  received 
without  violating  the  moral  constitution  of  the  human 
mind."  ""  This  conclusion  is  further  confirmed  by  Mr. 
Hallam  who  cites  for  the  purpose  a  horrible  extract 
from  the  Heidelberg  Propositions,  15 18.  So  much  for 
the  moral  principles  propagated  by  Luther  and  based 
by  him  on  the  Bible.  Of  the  language  in  which  he 
addressed  his  hearers  and  readers  Mr.  Hallam  says  : 
"  No  serious  author  of  the  least  reputation  will  be  found 
who  defiled  his  pages  I  do  not  say  with  such  indelicacy, 
but  with  such  disgusting  filthiness.  "  '  "  In  all  his  at- 
tacks on  popes  and  cardinals,  Luther  disgraces  himself 
by  a  nasty  and  stupid  brutality."  * 

1  Literature  of  Europe,  part  I.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  305,  note. 

2  Ibid.  3  Ibid.  306.  •»  Ibid. 


Luther  s  FiltJiincss. — Gausscn  on  tJic  Canon.         571 

The  effect  of  Luther's  "notions"  and  "filthiness"  on 
his  followers,  one  may  imagine,  but  can  hardly  describe. 
"  Munzer  and  KnipperdoUing  (says  Hallam  ')  with  the 
whole  rabble  of  Anabaptist  fanatics  were  the  legitimate 
brood  of  Luther's  doctrine.  And  even  if  we  set  them 
aside,  it  is  certain  that  we  find  no  testimonials  to  any 
reform  of  manners  in  the  countries  that  embraced  it." 
No,  certainly  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  abundant  evidence 
by  Luther  himself,  his  associates,  and  his  contempo- 
raries, that  wherever  his  principles  were  adopted,  anar- 
chy took  the  place  of  social  order,  and  christian  morality 
was  superseded  by  a  code  of  ethics,  which  would  have 
disgraced  pagan  Rome,  and  which  tolerated,  if  it  did 
not  countenance,  crimes,  for  which  the  Lord  rained 
down  from  heaven  fire  and  brimstone  on  the  cities  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrha.  Hallam  would  never  have  ex- 
pressed himself,  as  he  has  done,  about  Luther's  foul 
language  and  fouler  moral  principles,  and  the  effect  pro- 
duced by  these  principles,  wherever  they  were  embraced; 
had  he  not  been  driven  to  it  by  Luther's  imprudent  apolo- 
gists, who  thoughtlessly  undertook  to  defend  their  hero 
against  a  criticism,  whose  extreme  moderation  had  been 
its  only  fault.  Yet,  swayed  probably  b}'  the  prejudices 
of  his  own  country,  perhaps  by  his  sympath}'  with  the 
part  played  by  Luther  in  the  religious  rebellion  of  the 
sixteenth  centur}-,  Hallam  has  treated  very  gently,  if  at 
all,  Luther's  views  on  marriage  and  divorce — views  so 
disgusting  and  abominable,  that  they  will  not  bear  to  be 
translated  into  English  out  of  the  Latin,  in  which  they 
are  still  preserved,  to  the  eternal  disgrace  of  Luther  and 
the  lasting  shame  of  the  Reformation.  In  all  Christen- 
dom the  City  of  Salt  Lake  is  probably  the  only  place 
now,  where  their  advocacy  would  fail  to  excite  a  feeling 
of  public  execration.  The  reader,  should  he  desire  fur- 
ther information  on  this  unpleasant  subject  is  referred 

'  Ibid. 


5/2  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

to  Audin's  Life  of  Lnther  or  other  similar  works,  which 
contain  that  saddest  of  chapters  in  the  annals  of  human 
depravity. 

It  was  evident  to  all,  except  the  misguided  multitudes 
of  fanatics,  who  indulged  in  the  orgies  fostered  by  the 
anti-christian  principles  of  the  Protestant  reformers, 
that  the  dissolution  of  society  as  organized  on  a  Chris- 
tian basis  was  inevitable,  unless  some  remedy  could  be 
found  for  the  evils  by  which  it  was  afflicted.  But  what 
was  to  be  done?  Either  the  right  of  private  judgment 
was  to  be  abandoned,  or  the  secular  arm  invoked  to 
suppress  the  disorders  resulting  from  its  exercise.  The 
first  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  as  it  implied  the  admis- 
sion that  the  Protestant  reformation  was  what  no  honest 
man  could  deny,  an  outrage  on  reason  as  well  as  revela- 
tion, and  that  the  Catholic  principle,  which  it  antagon- 
ized, was  the  only  one  consistent  with  the  peace  and 
preservation  of  society.  The  second  alternative  was 
therefore  preferred,  and  there  was  no  one  more  urgent 
for  its  adoption  than  Luther  himself.  It  was  thus  that 
in  England  as  well  as  in  Germany  those  ghostl}-  fire 
brands,  who  were  ever  ready  to  sing  psalms,  expound 
the  Scriptures,  or  fight  the  battles  of  the  Lord,  as  cir- 
cumstances demanded,  were  subdued  after  protracted 
and  sanguinary  struggles ;  and  society  extricated  from 
the  anarchical  condition,  to  which  an  open  bible  and 
private  interpretation  had  reduced  it. 

The  friends  of  the  reformation  had  good  reason  to  be 
ashamed  of  the  necessity,  which  compelled  the  civil 
authority  to  adopt  such  heroic  treatment  in  checking 
those  public  disorders,  which  were  the  legitimate  fruits 
of  the  principles  on  which  that  Reformation  was  based. 
and  without  which,  as  a  system  of  religion,  it  must 
cease  to  exist.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  some  of  these 
friends  would  exercise  their  ingenuity,  in  devising  such 
modifications  of  the  system,  as  would  enable  its  followers 


Luther  s  FiltJiincss. —  Gausscii  on  the  Canon.         573 

to  profess  it  without  being-  rejj^arded  with  suspicion,  or 
outLiwed  as  many  of  them  had  been  for  their  crimes. 
To  deny  to  every  one  the  right  of  interpreting  the 
Scriptures  according  to  liis  own  private  judgment,  was 
to  undo  all  that  had  been  done— to  renounce  in  fact  tiie 
glorious  reformation  and  return  to  Rome.  This  would 
never  do.  But  was  it  not  possible  to  retain  that  right, 
as  the  corner-stone  of  the  Protestant  system  (for  such  it 
really  is,)  so  that  the  professors  of  the  system  might  for 
mutual  help  and  encouragement  group  themselves  into 
various  organizations,  according  as  they  could  agree  in 
adopting  a  creed  to  be  exchanged  for  another  when  it 
failed  to  satisfy;  and  yet  place  some  restriction  on  the 
privilege  each  claimed  of  discriminating  between  can- 
onical and  apocryphal  writings?  This  might  mitigate, 
though  it  could  not  eradicate  the  evil. 

Some  such  notion  seems  to  have  been  entertained  by 
Chemnitius,  who,  with  Bucer,  labored  in  vain  to  unite 
the  Lutherans  and  Sacramentarians.  The  reformers  re- 
garded the  former  as  one  oi  their  ablest  advocates  :  and 
Melancthon,  under  whom  he  studied  at  Wittemberg, 
called  him  "the  Prince  of  Protestant  Theologians."  He 
is  the  author  of  several  works,  notably  of  one  entitled 
Exajuen  Coneilii  Tridentini,  in  which  he  endeavors  to 
refute  the  doctrines  promulgated  by  the  Council  of 
Trent.  He  admits  as  canonical,  only  those  books  that 
have  been  approved  b}-  all  the  Churches,  not  such  as 
have  been  declared  to  be  so  by  Councils.  '  Gausseu, 
(d.  1863.)  a  native  of  Geneva  and  a  Calvinistic  minister 
developed  the  theory  of  Chemnitius,  arguing  that  the 
principle,  on  which  Protestants  undertake  to  settle  the 
canon  is  false  and  untenable,  and  substituting  for  it  the 
testimony  of  the  Jewish  Church  with  regard  to  the  Old 
Testament,  and  that  of  the  Catholic  Church  with  regard 
to  the  New.     By  the  testimony  of  the  Jewish  Church. 

'   Ligouri,  Hist,  of  Her.  i.  325. 


574  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

he  understands  "  the  common  opinion  of  all  the  Jews, 
Egyptian  and  Syrian,  Asiatic  and  European,  Saddu- 
cean  and  Pharisees,  ancient  and  modern,  good  and 
bad."  And  by  the  testimony  of  the  Catholic  Church 
"'  the  universal  agreement  of  the  ancient  and  modern 
Churches,  Asiatic  and  European,  good  and  bad,  which 
call  on  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ ;  that  is  to  say,  not  only 
the  faithful  sects  of  the  blessed  Reformation,  but  the 
Greek,  the  Armenian  sects,  the  Syrian  sect,  the  Roman 
sect,  and  perhaps  the  Unitarian  sects  ;"  '  the  Mormons 
are  omitted.  And  farther  on,  ^  he  goes  so  far  as  to  ascribe 
infallibility  to  both  Jewish  and  Christian  Churches,  with 
respect  to  the  Canon  of  Scripture.  "  The  Jews,  he  says, 
could  not  introduce  a  human  book  into  the  Old  Testa- 
ment;  and  neither  the  Council  of  Trent,  nor  the  most 
corrupt   and  idolatrous  churches   could  :add   a  single 

Apocryphal  book    to  the    New It  was  not  in  their 

power  not  to  transmit  them  intact  and  complete.  In 
spite  of  themselves  it  was  so  ordered." 

Gaussen's  work  when  it  appeared  in  England  was,  his 
translator  says,  pronounced  "  invaluable."  Yet  here  we 
have  assumptions  equally  gratuitous  with  those,  which 
Gaussen  rejects  as  untenable.  For  neither  the  Scrip- 
ture nor  common  sense  furnishes  a  reason  for  believing 
that  while  God  leaves  the  sects  to  follow  their  own 
conceits  in  matters  of  greater  importance.  He  actually 
so  controls  or  guides  the  belief  of  each  regarding  the 
canon,  that  when  the  canon  of  each  is  compared  with 
the  various  canons  of  all  other  sects,  one  is  thua  enabled 
to  make  up  a  list  of  all  those  books  which  He  recognizes 
as  his  own.  Besides  it  is  only  the  learned — if  even  they 
— who  could  derive  any  benefit  from  such  a  rule,  as 
they  alone  could  possibly  know  which  are  the  books 
that  each  sect  receives  as  canonical.  To  test  the  accur- 
acy of  Gaussen's  rule,  apply  it  to  the  age  of  Melito.     At 

1    Theopnenstia,  pp.  131,  133,    (Scott's  transl.).  ^  p.  134. 


Luther  s  Filthiness. — Gausscn  on  the  Canon.         575 

that  time  the  Palestinian  Jews  had  not  Esther,  but  the 
Hellenists  had,  both  however  agreed  in  receiving  all  the 
other  books  on  the  Hebrew  canon.  The  canon,  therefore, 
at  that  period,  according  to  Gaussen  was  the  present  Jew- 
ish canon  minus  the  Book  of  Esther.  If  that  was  then  the 
true  canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  ought  to  be  so  still. 
How  comes  it,  therefore,  that  at  present  the  Jewish 
canon  includes  Esther  ?  Moreover,  the  Arians  for  a 
long  time  were  a  very  numerous  and  respectable  sect, 
in  fact  as  much  so  as  any  Protestant  sect  ever  was. 
Nor  are  they  yet  wholly  extinct.  Well,  among  the  doc- 
trines which  they  denied  was  the  canonicity  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. '  What  therefore,  let  us  ask, 
was  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  during  the  long 
period,  in  which  Arianism  contended  for  supremacv 
with  the  Church  ?  According  to  Gaussen's  rule  it  was 
the  present  canon,  whatever  it  may  be,  with  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  left  out.  What  again  was  the  canon  of 
Scripture  during  the  existence  of  other  Christian  sects? 
It  was  the  canon,  whatever  mav  have  been  its  actual 
and  legitimate  contents,  less  those  parts  thereof  which 
the  sects  in  question  chose  to  reject.  Thus  the  canon 
is  made  to  depend  not  on  the  will  of  God,  or  the  au- 
thority of  the  Church,  but  on  the  caprice  of  ever}-  rogue 
or  fool  who  succeeds  in  gathering  around  him  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  knaves  or  dupes  to  constitute  what  he 
is  pleased  to  call  a  church,  the  first  work  of  that  church 
or  its  founder  being  to  mutilate  or  adulterate  the  word 
of  God.  Gaussen  in  a  subsequent  work, "  remarks'  that 
the  Peshito  catalogue  wanted  several  books,  (that  is 
true  for  it  had  not  the  second  Epistle  of  Peter,  the  sec- 
ond and  third  of  John,  that  of  Jude  and  the  Apocalypse,) 
and  that  Origen's  catalogue  included  most  if  not  all  of 
these  books.     Now  at  that  time  the  former  catalogue 

'    Theodoi-e(^  Praf.  in  Ep.  ad  Hcbrcos. 

2   The  Canon  of  the  Holy  Scripture.  ^  pp.  23-25  seq. 


5/6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

represented  the  belief  of  the  Syrian  Church,  the  latter 
expressed  the  faith  of  the  Greek  Church.  But  what 
was  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  at  that  time? 
Evidently  according  to  Gaussen  what  it  is  to-day  with 
five  books  left  out.  Gaussen's  theory  is  therefore  as 
objectionable  as  any  of  the  other  Protestant  devices  it 
was  intended  to  supersede. 


CHAPTER  XL. 


The  Protestant  Canon  abridged  by  Emanuel  Swed- 

ENBORG,  BUT  ENLARGED  BY  JOSEPH  SmITH. 

Notwithstanding  the   caveats  and   protests  of   many 
learned    and    earnest    Protestant   scholars   against    the 
private  inspiration  claimed  in  the  Protestant  confessions 
of  faith  for  all  who  read  the   Bible ;  the   principle  was 
generally  acted   on,  and  the  ignorant  as    well   as    the 
learned  undertook  to  decide,  not  only  what  was  Script- 
ure, but  what  was  its  sense.     In   the   Old   World    for 
example,  the  last  century  was  signalized  b}'  the  reveries 
of  the  otherwise   highly  cultivated   mind  of  Emanuel 
Swedenborg,  who  surprised  his  contemporaries  by  the 
extravagant  theories  he  built  upon  and  about  the  Bible. 
Yet  he  succeeded  in  founding  what  is  called  "  the  New 
Jerusalem  Church,"  which  numbers  at  present  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  some  nine  or  ten  thousand 
souls  known  as  Swedenborgians,  their  religious  system 
being  styled  "  Swedenborgianism."     The  membership  of 
this  almost  latest  form  of  Protestantism  seems  however 
gradually  advancing  towards  extinction.     Swedenborg 
himself  rejected  several  dogmas  generally  admitted  by 
his  fellow  Protestants,  and  as  a  consequence  excluded 
from  his  canon  of  Scripture  those  books,  in  which  such 
dogmas  were  inculcated.     The  original  reformers  had 
proceeded  on  the  same  principle,  and  their  descendants 
could    not  justly  complain,   when  the   latest   reformer 
commenced  by  regulating,  not  his  belief  by  the  Bible, 
but  the  Bible  bv  his  belief.     He  denied  original  sin.  the 


578  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

vicarious  satisfaction  of  Christ,  the  resurrection  of  the 
flesh,  and  some  other  doctrines.  The  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  etc.,  formed,  therefore, 
no  part  of  the  sacred  catalogue  of  books  which  received 
his  approval.  According  to  one  of  themselves,  Swed- 
enborg's  followers  "do  not  believe  that  all  the  tracts 
bound  up  in  their  Bible  can  claim  the  grand  designation 
(of  the  Word  of  God),  but  think,  we  (the}-)  have  a  cri- 
terion for  determining  the  products  of  the  '  divine  affla- 
tus '  from  all  the  works  of  man."  He  does  not  say 
what  that  "  criterion  "  is,  but  whatever  it  be,  there  is 
no  doubt  it  has  caused  the  Swedenborgians,  like  many 
other  sectarists,  ancient  and  modern,  to  make  sad  havoc 
of  God's  holy  word.  The  same  writer  remarks  in  a 
note,  that  "  The  books  of  the  word  are  the  Pentateuch. 
Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings,  the  Psalms,  and  all  the 
Prophets  in  the  Old  Testament ;  and  the  four  Evange- 
lists and  Revelations  in  the  New.  The  other  books 
(except  the  Canticles  and  Apocrypha)  contain  the  truth 
— are  written  with  as  high  a  degree  of  inspiration  as 
writers  generally  ascribe  to  those  enumerated,  but  do 
not  contain  the  intimate  sense  in  a  connected  or  divine 
series."  '  According  to  his  own  statement  Swedenborg 
was  permitted  to  see  "  the  Heavens  and  the  Hells  "  as 
he  designates  the  abode  of  the  blessed  and  the  prison  of 
the  reprobate.  He  was  in  constant  communication 
with  angels,  and  received  revelations  immediately  from 
God  Himself,  who,  as  he  seems  to  teach,  is  one  not 
only  in  essence  but  in  person.  And  according  to  Rev. 
W.  Mason  a  Swedenborgian  minister:  Swedenborg 
"  By  means  of  the  divine  science  of  correspondences 
between  things  spiritual  and  natural  ....  agreeably  to 
which  the  Scriptures  had  been  written  ....  could  pene- 
trate the  clouds  of  the  literal  sense,  and  behold  the 
spiritual  sense  which  lies  concealed  therein.""     Throw- 

1  History  of  all  Denomitiations.  p.  531.  -   Ibid.  535. 


By  Swcdcnbor^  and  Smith.  570 

ing  aside  as  so  much  rubbish  the  pretentious  mysticism, 
rather  the  cabaHstic  language,  that  accompanies  the 
description  which  Swedenborg  and  his  followers  have 
given  of  the  key,  by  which  they  ascertain  the  sense  of 
what  they  retain  as  the  word  of  God,  a  close  observer 
will  find  that  that  key  differs  not  essentially  from  the 
one,  which  Protestants  who  have  never  studied  "  the 
divine  science  of  correspondences"  commonlv  use  for 
the  same  purpose. ' 

In  less  than  a  century  after  Swedenborg  had  attempted 
in  vain  to  propagate  his  speculations  in  the  Old  World  ; 
Joe  Smith  an  illiterate  peasant  of  Vermont  startled  the 
people  of  the  New  by  announcing,  that  he  had  received 
from  ''an  angel  of  the  Lord"  a  revelation  contained  in 
a  volume  called  "the  Book  of  Mormon."  "We  (says 
Smith)  believe  the  Bible,  (the  Protestant  one  of  course,) 
to  be  the  Word  of  God,  so  far  as  it  is  correctly  trans- 
lated ;  we  also  believe  the  Book  of  Mormon  to  be  the 
Word  of  God."  ^  It  has  long  been  regarded  as  certain 
that  the  "  Book  of  Mormon  "  was  originally  no  more 
than  a  romance  written  in  the  early  part  of  the  present 
century  by  Solomon  Spalding,  then  a  resident  of  Ohio, 
but  formerly  of  Connecticut  where  he  had  been  a 
preacher.  At  that  time  the  fate  of  the  ten  lost  tribes  of 
Israel  was  a  subject  of  curious  speculation  among  bible 
readers  in  the  United  States,  and  Spalding  as  a  matter 
of  pastime  or  profit  undertook  to  show  that  the  Ameri- 
can Indians  were  the  descendants  of  the  ten  tribes, 
w^ho,  after  various  vicissitudes  b}-  land  and  sea,  at  last 
reached  and  settled  in  America.  The  result  was  a  vol- 
ume, which  Spalding  designated  "  Manuscript  Found" 
but  did  not  live  to  publish,  having  died  in  1806.     It  fell 

'  For  more  about  Swedenborg's  system  see  Moehler's  Symbolism,  p.  525. 
and  Alzog's  Universal  Chinch  Hist.,  vol.  iii.,  614,  (Pabisch  &  Byrne)  where  it 
is  said,  Swedenborg  "attacked  the  doctrine  of  justification  as  held  by  Protes- 
tants." 

2  Hisl.  of  all  Denoininatious,  p.  410. 


5  8o  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstajncnt. 

however  into  the  hands  of  Sidney  Rigdon,  a  citizen  of 
Alleghany  Co.  Pa.,  who  w^as  connected  with  a  Pittsburg 
printing  ofifice,  where  Spalding  had  left  it.  Rigdon 
having  copied  the  manuscript  it  was  returned  to 
Spalding's  widow.  Rigdon  subsequently  abandoned 
the  printing  business,  and  became  a  preacher  of  princi- 
ples similar  to  those  incorporated  in  the  "Book  of 
Mormon."  He  even  succeeded  in  gathering  around 
him  a  small  body  of  believers,  who  under  his  guidance 
combined  their  means,  and  purchased  property  in  one 
of  the  South-western  counties  of  Pennsylvania,  where 
they  all  settled  with  him  as  their  spiritual  head,  in  hour- 
ly expectation  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  an  event  of 
which  he  gave  them  the  fullest  assurance,  careful  how- 
ever not  to  restrict  its  occurrence  to  any  particular 
date.  At  last  they  insisted  that  he  should  give  them 
da}-  and  date.  And  unable  to  resist  their  unanimous 
demand  any  longer  he  did  so,  declaring  that  on  a  certain 
night  the  Redeemer  should  come  down  through  the 
hay  mow  in  the  barn,  which  the  brethren  had  erected. 
There  they  spent  the  entire  night  in  anxious  and  sleep- 
less expectation,  but  the  Lord  having  failed  to  put  in  an 
appearance,  the  community  indignant  and  disappointed, 
immediately  disbanded.  Meantime  Joe  Smith  had  been 
in  communication  with  the  angel  Moroni,  of  course  ac- 
cording to  his  own  account,  and  had  thus  been  enabled 
to  exhume  near  his  home  at  Manchester,  Ontario  Co., 
N.  Y.,  a  record  on  golden  plates,  which  with  the  aid  of 
two  transparent  stones  found  at  the  same  time  and 
place  and  called  by  him  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  he 
succeeded  in  deciphering  to  the  great  surprise  of  his 
simple  neighbors.  He  had  become  associated  with 
Rigdon  and  having  thus  obtained  the  latter's  copy  of 
Spalding's  manuscript,  he  proposed  with  Rigdon's  as- 
sistance, to  make  the  contents  of  that  volume  and  his 
own  story  about  the  golden  plates  and  the  Urim  and 


Bj  Sivcdcnborg  and  SniitJi.  581 

Thummim  subsidiary  to  the  creation  of  a  new  church. 
The  "  Book  of   Mormon"  professing  to  be  a  transcrip- 
tion   in    English  of  the    record  on    the    golden  plates, 
was    printed    in    1830.     Soon    after   it    was   compared 
with  Spalding's  manuscript,  and  examined  by  several  of 
Spalding's  friends  who  had  seen  his  romance.     The  in- 
vestigation appears  to  have  demonstrated  that  though 
somewhat  different  from  Spalding's  work,  the  "  Book  of 
Mormon"  had  been  composed  by  one  thoroughly  con- 
versant with  that  work,  filled  as  it  was  with  the  same 
historical  matter  and  containing  many  passages  wholly 
or  partially  copied  from  it,  though  as  far  as  possible  it 
is  written  in  the  quaint  style  of  King  James's  bible.    All 
this  seems  to  have  convinced  the  pubHc,  that  Joe  Smith's 
bible  is  simply  Solomon  Spalding's  romance  dressed  up 
in  the    phraseology  of   the  authorized  version.     Joe's 
statements  were  Relieved  by  many  as  ignorant  as  him- 
self, but  not  so  shrewd  ;  and  he  succeeded  in  a  short  time 
in  gathering  around  him    a  large  number  of  disciples 
made  up  of  knaves,  charlatans,  fanatics,  and  fools.    Driv- 
en from    one  part  of  the    country  to  another  in   their 
efforts  to  establish  a  permanent  settlement,  after  losing 
their  inspired   leader  who  on  June  27,   1844,  was  shot 
dead  at  Carthage,  Illinois,  by  a  mob  of  excited  and  in- 
dignant  citizens,   Joe's  followers   at   last   migrated    to 
Utah,  a  great  part   of  which  they  at  present  occupy. 
There  on  the  river  Jordan,  which  connects  Great  Salt 
Lake  and  Lake  Utah,  they  erected  a  temple  and  built  a 
town.  Salt  Lake  City,  which  serves  as  a  centre  of  spiri- 
tual authority  for  "  the  Latter  day  Saints"  as  they  call 
themselves.    On  Joe's  death  Sidney  Rigdon  hoped  to  be- 
come his  successor,  but  was  set  aside  in  favor  of  Brighara 
Young,  and  being  adjudged  contumacious,  was  excom- 
municated.    Cursed  and  solemnly  delivered  over  to  the 
devil  "to  be  buffeted  in  the  flesh  for  a  thousand  years" 
he  disappeared  entirely  from  history. 


582  TJie  Canon  of  the  Old  Tcstaincnt 

At  first  the  Mormon  prophet  obtained  followers  prin- 
cipally from  the  eastern  districts  of  the  United  States, 
but  the  supply  from  that  quarter  failing,  his  Apostles, 
Bishops,  and  Elders,  as  the  highest  Mormon  dignitaries 
are  called,  were  dispatched  to  Europe  to  secure  con- 
verts, and  have  been  extremely  successful  wherever 
Protestantism  was  the  prevailing  creed.  Professor 
John  Fraser  of  the  Chicago  University,  in  an  article 
contributed  to  the  Enc^'clopedia  Brittanica  states  that 
Mormon  converts  come  "particularly  from  Great  Brit- 
ain, Sweden  and  Norway. '  Strangely  enough,  and  the 
fact  deserves  emphasis,  Ireland  has  furnished  few  if  any 
recruits  to  the  cause  of  Mormonism."  Yes  it  did,  one, 
who,  in  order  to  get  a  free  passage  joined  a  band  of 
Mormons  about  to  sail  for  America,  but  on  landing  was 
seen  no  more  among  the  saints.  However  the  Mormon 
missionaries  were  not  much  more  successful  among  the 
Italians,  French,  Spanish,  and  other  Catholic  popula- 
tions than  they  were  among  the  Irish.  The  truth  is, 
had  there  been  no  Protestantism  there  would  most 
probably  have  been  no  INIorraonism.  Latterly  several 
of  our  Southern  States,  where  Catholic  principles  are 
almost  unknown,  have  become  very  encouraging  recruit- 
ing grounds  for  the  Church  of  Latter  day  Saints.  But 
a  rigorous  application  of  Lynch  law  in  several  instances- 
to  the  missionaries,  has  convinced  them  that  Southern- 
ers are  not  yet  prepared  to  accept  the  code  of  morals 
introduced  by  the  Mormon  prophet,  and  that  a  consid- 
erable degree  of  caution  is  required  on  the  part  of  those 
who  undertake  to  preach  the  Gospel  there,  as  it  is  un- 

'  "  Three  hundred  and  fifty  Mormon  emigrants,  most  of  them  Scandinavi- 
ans, arrived  at  Castle  Garden  yesterday  on  the  Wyoming.  Thev  were  quietly 
hurried  through  the  usual  inspection  and  then  departed  westward  for  Salt 
Lake  City.  A  number  of  Elders  had  them  in  charge.  The  party  was  made 
up  of  men,  women  and  children,  there  being  a  large  proportion  of  young 
girls."  N.  Y.  Times,  June  21,  18S9.  Such  items  appear  in  the  N.  Y.  ship- 
ping news  probably  three  or  four  times  every  year. 


By  Swcdcnborg  and  Smith.  583 

derstood  in  Salt  Lake  City.  Among  other  peculiar 
customs  the  Mormons,  soon  after  they  were  organized 
as  a  religious  community,  began  to  practice  polygamy, 
though  by  the  laws  of  the  United  States  made  for  Utah 
it  is  now  treated  as  a  penal  offence.  At  present  there- 
fore the  Mormons  no  longer,  as  formerly,  boast  of  poss- 
essing such  a  privilege,  and  if  they  still  exercise  it  must 
do  so  in  secret.  Joe  himself  was  the  first  to  assume  the 
care  of  more  than  one  wife,  and  of  course  evaded  any 
such  responsibility,  until  he  could,  according  to  his  own 
account,  no  longer  resist  the  will  of  heaven  made  known 
to  him  by  a  special  revelation  on  the  subject.  The  ex- 
ample thus  set  by  their  prophet  was  soon  generally  fol- 
lowed by  the  rank  and  file  of  "  the  Latter  day  Saints"  all 
believing  that  they  found  good  authority  for  doing  so, 
not  only  in  the  divine  communication  made  to  their 
prophet,  but  in  the  precedent  estabhshed  by  the  patri- 
archs of  the  Old  Testament.  To  do  justice  to  Protest- 
ants of  other  denominations  it  ought  to  be  observed, 
that  as  soon  as  they  understood  thoroughly  the  tenden- 
cies of  Mormonism,  they  had  recourse  to  all  possible 
means  in  order  to  check  its  progress.  But  it  must  be 
admitted  those  means  too  often  savored  of  mob  law  and 
violence,  and  at  last  only  partially  succeeded,  if  even 
so;  when  those,  who  were  opposed  to  the  Mormons, 
had  obtained  the  assistance  of  the  mihtary  authorities. 
The  sects  commonly  called  Protestant  refuse  to  recog- 
nize the  Mormons  as  Protestants.  But  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  why  they  do  so.  For  like  themselves,  according 
to  Joe  Smith's  confession  of  faith,  the  Mormons  "  believe 
in  God  the  eternal  Father,  and  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ, 
and  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  men  will  be  punished  for 
their  own  sins,  not  for  Adam's  transgression,  that 
through  Jesus  Christ  all  men  may  be  saved  by  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws  and  ordinances  of  the  Gospel — these 
ordinances  being  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Bap- 


584  Tlic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

tism  by  immersion  for  the  remission  of  sins,  laying  on 
of  hands  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  "  '  and,  it  may 
be  added  "  The  Lord's  Supper,"  as  inculcated  by  Smith 
himself.'^  The}^  also  "believe  the  ten  commandments 
to  be  the  rule  of  life,  and  the  Bible  to  be  the  Word  of 
God,  as  far  as  it  is  translated  correctly  ;  and  believe  be- 
sides in  being  honest,  true,  chaste,  benevolent,  virtuous, 
and  in  doing  good  to  all  men."  ^  But,  and  apart  from 
Mormon  exclusiveness  and  Mormon  violence,  the  result 
perhaps  of  aggression  on  the  part  of  "  Gentiles,  "  as  the 
Mormons  call  all  other  people ;  here  is  the  main  objec- 
tion of  other  Protestant  sects  against  the  disciples  of 
Joseph  Smith :  What  about  Mormon  polygamy  and 
what  about  the  Mormon  bible?  Well  the  Mormons 
might  say  :  Where  is  the  great  difference  between  po- 
lygam)^  as  practised  by  the  Mormons,  and  polygamy  as 
practised  by  the  Gentiles.  A  Mormon  may  have  or 
may  not  have  at  the  same  time  more  wives  than  one  or 
none  at  all ;  but  once  he  takes  a  plurality  of  them  he  is 
bound  to  support  ever}-  one  of  them  as  long  as  she  lives, 
as  he  is  bound  to  support  her  who  is  his  only  wife, 
whereas  a  Gentile  by  the  easy  and  handy  method  of  di- 
vorce among  his  people  may  be  the  husband  of  as  many 
wives  as  a  Mormon,  provided  he  cohabit  only  with  the 
last  one  selected  ;  infidelity  to  whom  is  rarely  punished, 
while  he  is  not  bound  to  provide  for  the  other  half  doz- 
en whom  he  may  have  dismissed.  Among  us  Mormons 
every  child  knows  its  own  father,  with  you  Gentiles 
that  is  not  always  possible.  Where  then,  let  it  be  asked 
again  is  the  difference  between  Mormon  and  Gentile 
polygamy  ?  Let  unprejudiced  reason  decide  between 
the  two  systems.  And  as  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  had 
not  Joseph  Smith  as  good  a  right  to  add  a  new  volume 

'  Hist,  of  all  Denominations,  p.  410. 

2  See  A  Word  of  Wisdom  by  him. 

3  Hist,  of  all  Denominations,  p.  410. 


How  Settled  by  Protestants.  S^d 

to  the  Word  of  God,  as  Martin  Luther  had  to  tear  sev- 
eral old  ones  out  of  it.  In  this  case  Joe  poor  creature, 
if  you  will  have  it  so,  in  his  ignorance  sinned  against 
the  Holy  Book  by  addition ;  but  Mart.,  with  his  eyes 
open  sinned  against  it  by  subtraction.  Once  more  an 
unprejudiced   reader  might  inquire  in  what  did  they 

differ? 

Our  object  in  the  remarks  just  made  has  not  been  to 
show  that  the  Bible  is  treated  with  anything  like  con- 
tempt, even  by  the  most  irreligious  class  of  Americans, 
for  such  is  not  the  case.     On  the  contrary  we  believe 
that  few  pronounced  infidels  would  have  the  boldness 
to  stand  up  before  an  audience  composed  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  our  countrymen,  or  even  exclusively  of  those 
among  them  who  never  enter  into  a  meeting-house,  and 
directly  call  in  question  the  divine  inspiration  or  even 
the  truth  of  the  sacred  volume.     The  fault  of  Americans 
is  to  treat  it  with  careless  familiarity,  or  to  have  it  so 
treated,  and  approached  without  that  profound  rever- 
ence due  to  every    word    that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God.     They  do  not  realize   that  it  is   to   be 
handled  as  something  essentially  sacred,  and  to  be  read 
with  fear  and  trembling.     And  hence  one  meets  it  not 
only  in  the  church,  the  pulpit— its  proper  position,— 
and  in  the  choicest  place  of  the  family  library,  but  on 
desks  of  thoughtless  school  children,  in  rail-road  cars, 
steam-boats,  and  the  rooms  of  hotel  guests,  soiled  and 
torn,  with  its  margins  and  blank  leaves  covered  with 
senseless   and   irreverent   scribblings.      Thus  it  is  too 
often  treated  as  something  very  common,  receiving  less 
attention  and  hardly  more  respect  than  is  paid  to  the 
paper,  from  which  readers  learn  the  news,  and  the  price 
of  stocks.     And  if  a  Catholic,  indignant  at  all  this,  and 
zealous  for  the  honor  of  God  and  God's  holy    word 
dares  to  remonstrate  against  such  profanations,  he  finds 
himself  at  once  pilloried  as  an  enemy  of  the  Bible. 


586  The  Canon  of  tlie  Old  Testament. 

But  enough  on  this  point.  Before  the  reader's  atten- 
tion was  directed  to  the  criminal  vagaries  of  Joe  Smith 
and  his  followers,  as  illustrating  the  danger  to  be  appre- 
hended from  the  unrestricted  circulation  of  the  Bible 
among  half  educated  people ;  he  must  have  observed 
that  the  principle  proclaimed  by  the  Protestant  creed 
makers,  produced  wherever  it  was  adopted,  its  nat- 
ural results :  in  religion,  a  swarm  of  sects  ;  in  biblical 
interpretation,  a  license  before  which  the  landmarks  of 
even  rational  belief  disappeared  ;  and  in  society  all  the 
evils  of  unbridled  fanaticism.  Such  has  been  the  case 
particularly  in  Great  Britain  and  Germany,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  wherever  the  people  were  encouraged  to 
decide  for  themselves  what  books  belonged  to  the  Bible, 
and  to  exercise  their  own  judgment  in  ascertaining 
what  those  books  meant.  And  when  the  reaction  which 
always  follows  a  period  of  turbulence,  set  in,  it  brought 
with  it  in  this  instance  a  spirit  of  irreverent  criticism, 
which  boldly  challenged  the  credentials  of  written  rev^- 
elation,  and  concluded  by  denying  the  divine  origin  of 
every  book  in  the  Canon  of  Scripture.  In  German}"  the 
rationalistic  school  of  critics,  made  up  of  divines,  philos- 
ophers, and  philologists,  all  professional  Christians,  has 
during  the  last  and  present  century  exerted  all  its  learn- 
ing and  talents  to  divest  the  Bible  of  its  supernatural 
character.  There  is  hardly  a  book  of  the  Old  or  New 
Testament  that  has  escaped  the  condemnation  of  those 
daring  censors  ;  Gaussen  '  himself  an  ardent  Protestant 
divine  bitterly  deplores  the  pernicious  influence,  which 
their  writings  and  lectures  in  the  schools  and  universi- 
ties of  Germany  have  had  on  the  minds  of  their  youth- 
ful readers  and  pupils.  In  this  unholy  attempt  to 
change  the  national  belief  in  the  Bible  as  a  divine  reve- 
lation, a  prominent  part  must  be  assigned  to  Michaelis, 
Semler,  Eichorn,  Schmidt,  Bertholdt,  de  Wette,  Gue- 

1  On  the  Canon  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  p.  496. 


How  Settled  by  Piotestants.  58/ 

ricke,  Schott,  Credner,  Neudccker,  Reuss,  Baur,  Schultz, 
Schleiermacher,    Schneckenberger,    Lucke,     Neander, 
Schwegler,    Vogel,     Cludius,     Bretschneider,    Weber, 
Schrader,  Mayerhoff,  Kern,  Olshausen,  Ullman,  Huther, 
Laiip-e,  Paul  us,  Dahl,  Diesterdick.     To  this  list  may  be 
added  an  etc.  as  several  others  have  attained  more  or  less 
notoriety  in  the  same  unholy  crusade  against  the  Bible. 
Besides,  these  have  a  large  following  composed  of  dis- 
ciples and  imitators,  in  all  countries  where  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Reformation  were  embraced  ;  but  notably 
in   Great  Britain,   where    that    large    class   of    nominal 
Protestants  who  devote  themselves  to  the  same  anti- 
Christian  task,  hailed  as  an  enlightened  associate,  Colenso 
Anglican  bishop  of  Natal,  declaring  in  the  year   1862, 
that  there  are  statements  in  the  inspired  volume  which 
are  not  historically  true.  '     And  when  still  later  in   1881, 
Professor  Robertson   Smith,  then  of  Aberdeen,  while 
engaged  in  a  lecturing  tour,  felt  at  hberty  to  tell  his 
hearers,  mostly  Presbyterians,  that  "  the  Pentateuchal 
history  was  written  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  if  it  is  all 
by  one  hand,  it  was  not  composed  before  the  period  of 
the  Kings," '  with  much  more  of  the  same  sort  equally 
inconsistent  with  the  common  belief  of  devout  Protest- 
ant Bible  readers,  and  subsequently  published  in  book 
form ;  the  same  class  of  nominal  Protestants  regarded 
with  indifference,  if  not  with  manifest  sympathy,  the 
onslaught  then  made  on  the  word  of  God.     Any  man 
in   England  or   Scotland    who    would  have    expressed 
himself  thus  regarding  the  Bible,  in  the   days   of   the 
CromweUians  or  Covenanters,  would  have  been  branded 
or  burned  as  a  heretic.     In  this  matter  British  biblical 
critics  have  simply  followed  in  the  wake  of  those  German 
free-thinkers,  who  advocate  what  is  ostentatiously  called 
''the  higher  criticism,"  a  method  of  treatment  which 


T/ie  Pentateuch  and  Book  of  Joshna  critically  examined,  p.  l8. 
The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  321-322. 


588  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament. 

brushes  aside  the  supernatural  altogether  as  something 
absurd  and  superstitious,  yet  one  which  is  applied  to 
the  inspired  volume  by  not  a  few  Protestant  writers 
and  thinkers  in  the  United  States,  where  the  rule  is 
with  them  to  follow  the  religious  views  prevailing 
among  Englishmen,  as  it  has  been  of  late  the  fashion 
among  the  latter  to  regulate  their  belief  regarding  the 
Bible  by  theories  imported  from  Germany. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 


The  Old  Testament  deutero   Books  a  part  of 
God's  Word. 
All  has  now  been  said,  that  seemed  necessary  regard- 
ino-  the  Canon  of  Scripture  as  regulated  by  Cathohcs, 
Jews,  Schismatics  and   Sectarists.     As   we   have  seen, 
Catholics,  Schismatics  and  Sectarists  generally   differ 
from  the  Jews  by  receiving  as  canonical  all  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament.     But  Catholics  whose  belief  on 
this  point,  is,  and  has  been  always,  professed   by  the 
Schismatics,  whether  before  or  since  the  latter  became 
such,  are  at  issue  with  Jews  and  Sectarists  in  declaring 
the  deutero  books  of  the  Old  Testament  to  be  part  of 
the  sacred  Scriptui^es.    The  next  question,  therefore,  to 
demand  special  treatment  is,  whether  these  books  are 
entitled  to  the  same  respect,  and  possess  the  same  au- 
thority as  the  others,  which,  according  to  the  common 
belief  of  Christians  and  Jews,  were  written  under  divine 
influence,  in  other  words  whether  they  are  canonical  or 

not.  .   . 

In  presenting  the  argument,  by  which  the  canonicity 
of  the  Books  in  question  is  established,  it  should  be  ob. 
served  at  the  outset,  that  not  only  these,  but  several 
other  books  in  either  Testament,  now  considered  canon- 
ical by  almost  all  classes  of  Christians,  were  regarded 
with  suspicion,  and  even  excluded  from  the  roll  of  sa- 
cred Scripture  by  some  early  Christian  writers:  and 
even  three  at  least-the  Canticle  of  Canticles,  Ecclesi- 


589 


590  TJic  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

astes  and  Ezechiel  '  now  included  in  the  Hebrew  Can- 
on— were,  if  not  absolutely  rejected,  at  all  events  treated 
by  some  Rabbinical  doctors  in  a  manner  which  showed 
that  the  Jews  were  at  one  time  by  no  means  unanimous 
in  reg-arding:  those  books  as  canonical.  As  to  Esther  it 
is  well  known  that  in  the  second  century  the  Jews  had 
not  that  book  on  their  canon.  ^  Yet  the  Church  her- 
self, wherever  her  voice  could  reach  or  her  mind  be  as- 
certained, was  always  known  to  hold  and  to  teach  that, 
whatever  might  be  the  opinion  of  individual  Christian 
or  Jewish  writers,  every  book  in  the  Canon  approved  by 
the  Council  of  Trent  constituted  a  part  of  the  written 
revelation  made  by  God. 

Nor  should  it  be  an  occasion  of  surprise,  that  in  a 
matter  of  the  kind  some  of  her  most  learned  and  devot- 
ed members  entertained  and  expressed  opinions  at  vari- 
ance with  the  practical  belief  of  the  Church,  as  illus- 
trated in  the  teaching  of  her  chief  Pastors  and  in  her 
liturgical  books.  For  it  was  possible  then  for  genera- 
tions, even  whole  centuries,  to  pass,  without  that  belief 
being  so  generally  known,  that  only  the  illiterate,  and 
such  of  the  faithful  as  were  far  removed  from  the  cen- 
tres of  ecclesiastical  information,  could  be  ignorant  of 
it.  The  point  was  one,  on  which  though  over  fourteen 
centuries  had  passed  since  the  Bible  had  been  completed, 
no  judgment  had  been  pronounced,  which  all  could  re- 
gard as  final  or  indicative  of  the  doctrine  held  by  the 
Church  Universal  from  the  beginning.  For  during  that 
period  the  question  had  never  assumed  so  much  impor- 
tance, as  to  render  a  solemn  decision  necessar)\  Be- 
sides the  circumstances,  in  which  the  Church  often  found 
herself,  were  not  such  as  to  enable  her  to  express  her 
mind  on  that  question  in  tones,  that  no  one  could  mis- 

'   Ibid.  2  Kittos  Cyclop.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  iS6. 

3  Ibid.  Vol.  I.,  p.  522.  *  Ibid.  Vol.  II.,  p.  875. 


Includes  the  Deutcro  Books.  59  ^ 

understand.  It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  Christianity 
had  been  propagated  from  the  beginning,  not  by  the 
reading  but  by  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel, '  and  in 
fact  is  still  mainly  so  propagated.  That,  as  directed  by 
its  divine  Founder,  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion were  to  be  promulgated  throughout  the  world 
principally  by  oral  teaching  ; '  and  that  while  there  can 
be  no  doubt  His  Apostles  in  every  instance  taught  their 
converts  all  that  was  necessary  for  salvation  ;  and  sev- 
eral of  them  have  written  on  various  subjects,  they  left 
behind  them  no  certain  digest,  placed  on  record,  no  au- 
thentic summary  even  of  the  articles  which  Christians 
had  to  profess  ;  as  if  they  intended  that  the  dogmatic  and 
moral  principles,  which  they  inculcated  should  be  pre- 
served and  transmitted  to  future  generations  by  the 
same  means,  which  they  themselves,  as  instructed  by 
their  divine  Master,  according  to  the  texts  just  cited 
employed  with  so  much  success. 

And  if  th!it  Creed,  which  goes  by  their  name,  was 
really  written  by  the  Apostles  ;  the  omission  of  all  ref- 
erence therein  to  the  Canon  of  Scripture  would  seem  to 
imply,  that  the  point  was  one  of  those  subjects,  on 
which  exphcit  belief  was  not  then  necessary  ;  and  which, 
should  it  ever  become  an  occasion  of  controversy,  was 
to  be  decided  in  the  same  way  as  the  question  regard- 
ing the  observance  of  the  Mosaic  ceremonial '  already 
settled  by  the  Apostles  themselves.  But  it  was  not  nec- 
essary for  the  Apostles  to  declare  explicitly  what  writ- 
ings constituted  the  Word  of  God,  or  to  leave  behind 
them  written  instructions,  whereby  Christians  of  their 
own  or  succeeding  generations  would  be  prevented  from 
confounding  human  with  divine  compositions.  The 
very  course,  which  they  themselves  adopted  in  this 
matter,  indicated  their  views  regarding  it  as  clearly  as 
any  point  expounded  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  and 

'  Mark  xvi.  15.  ^  Mat.  xxviii.   19,  20.  ^  Acts  xv. 


592  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

constitutes  a  rule,  which  is  certain  to  secure  all  who 
follow  it  against  error  in  ascertaining  the  true  canon  of 
Scripture.  For  wherever  churches  were  established,  or 
congregations  organized,  they  were  generally  provided 
Avith  copies  of  the  Scriptures  containing  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  so  much  of  the  New,  as  was  then  written — the 
sacred  Scripture  being  necessary  for  the  use  of  the  pul- 
pit, the  service  of  the  sanctuar}-,  and  as  a  book  of  refer- 
ence more  or  less  indispensable  to  all  engaged  in  the 
duties  of  the  Christian  ministrv.  And  with  the  excep- 
tion of  those  used  in  the  Sjrian  Churches,  which  excep- 
tion however  soon  disappeared,  all  those  copies,  as  we 
have  alread}'  shown  on  Protestant  authorit}',  were  uni- 
versally the  Septuagint  or  translations  made  from  it  con- 
taining, be  it  remembered,  several  books  now  no  longer 
found  among  the  Jews.  Yet,  so  far  as  can  be  known 
not  a  word  was  ever  said  by  any  of  the  Apostles,  or 
their  immediate  successors  to  the  faithful,  intimating 
that  those  books  were  less  sacred  than  the  others  con- 
tained in  the  text  of  the  Hebrew  as  well  as  of  the  Sep- 
tuagint. On  the  contrary  as  Dr.  Davidson  admits  ' 
"  They  (the  Apostles)  have  expressions  and  ideas  derived 
from  them"  (the  deutero  Books.)  So  that  wherever 
Christianity  was  planted.  East,  or  West,  its  professors, 
learned  and  ignorant  alike,  encouraged  by  the  example, 
or  at  least  the  tacit  consent  of  their  Apostolic  teachers, 
received  as  the  written  Word  of  God  the  entire  collec- 
tion of  books  which  the}^  found  in  the  Septuagint. 

Simple,  earnest  believers,  as  they  were,  those  primi- 
tive Christians  were  as  sure  of  this  as  that  Christ  was 
God,  had  died  for  their  salvation,  and  had  risen  again 
from  the  dead.  If  in  this  matter  they  were  mistaken, 
those  who  had  converted  them  to  the  faith,  and  to 
whom  they  looked  for  example  and  instruction,,  must 
bear  the  blame.     The  question  of  the  canon  was,  there- 

1  Encycl.,  Britt.  Canon  of  Saipt. 


Includes  the  Deiitcro  Books.  593 

fore,  one  on  which  their  minds  were  made  up,  and  if 
proposed  for  discussion  could  awaken  no  interest  what- 
ever among  them.  But  how  was  it  possible  for  the 
faithful  generally  to  conceive  such  doubts,  as  would 
result  in  any  discussion  of  the  kind,  when,  by  reason  of 
the  labor  and  expense  involved  in  transcribing  the  Bible, 
ver}'  lew  of  them  could  procure  a  copy  of  it,  and  still 
fewer  were  able  to  read  it  ?  For  several  centuries  most 
of  them  lived,  died,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  saved  their 
souls  without  ever  seeing  the  sacred  volume,  although 
they  heard  its  words  repeated  in  their  liturgies,  an- 
nounced from  their  pulpits,  and  quoted  by  their  teachers, 
and  knew  the  history  of  t^e  Old  and  New  Testament 
as  well  as  it  is  known  at  this  day  by  the  generality  of 
Christians.  The  Clu  rch  told  them  that  the  Bible,  not 
as  it  was  preserved  among  the  Jews,  but  as  her  ministers 
read  it  in  the  Gr^ek,  or  in  a  translation  from  the  Greek, 
with  the  Books  now,  bat  not  then  disputed,  or  in  any 
way  distinguished  from  the  others,  comprised  all  that 
had  been  delivered  to  her  as  sacred  Scripture  by  the 
Apostles,  and  they  so  believed.  For  the}^  knew,  as 
their  fathers  before  them  had  known,  that  as  followers 
of  Christ  they  were  to  be  guided  in  this  matter  as  in  all 
others  by  Christ's  Church,  not  by  the  Jewish  Synagogue. 
CathoHcs  believe  so  still  because  the  Church  teaches  so 
still ;  while  English  speaking  Protestants  prefer  to  hold 
that  certain  books  included  in  the  Bible  then,  as  now  by 
the  Church,  are  "apocryphal,"  because  King  James  and 
his  translators  declared  them  to  be  so.  In  this  matter 
Luther  led  the  way  in  Germany  seventy-seven  years 
before,  and  the  consequence  has  been,  that  wherever 
his  principles  spread,  the  intelligent  faith,  with  which 
Christian  piety  discerns  God's  autograph  in  every  line 
of  the  Bible,  if  noticed  by  Rationalists  or  the  advocates 
of  what  is  complacently  known  among  those  writers  as 
"  the  higher  criticism,"  is  greeted  with  the  pity  due  to 


594  T^^^^  Canon  of  the  Old  Testavient. 

invincible  ignorance  or  sneered  at  as  a  degrading  super- 
stition. 

In  those  early  times,  when  the  important  functions  of 
the  copyist  still  seemed  unlikely  to  be  ever  performed 
by  any  mechanical  process  such  as  the  printing  press, 
and  books  were  as  rare  as  they  were  unintelligible  to 
the  masses,  some  bishops  or  doctors  possessing  a  library 
and  a  taste  for  speculative  studies  might  turn  their  at- 
tention to  subjects  connected  with  the  canon.  But 
since  even  for  them  it  was  not  a  matter  of  life  or  death, 
nor  an  affair  of  heaven  or  hell,  whether  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  or  the  book  of  Hermas  was  to  be  con- 
sidered a  portion  of  the  New  Testament,  provided  they 
held  the  faith  as  taught  by  the  Church  and  preached  it 
to  the  people,  such  questions  if  discussed  at  all  were 
mooted  more  for  their  relations  to  abstract  truth  than 
for  any  practical  advantage  that  might  thus  accrue  to 
the  cause  of  religion.  In  fact  most  of  the  questions 
i-elating  to  the  Scripture,  though  since  clearly  defined, 
were  then  matters  on  which  conjecture  was  restricted 
by  no  limits  except  those  traced  by  tradition — the  only 
landmark  at  the  time  for  the  guidance  of  inquirers, —  so 
far  as  the  canon  was  concerned.  And  as  the  Church 
had  not  declared  her  mind  on  the  subject  it  was  impos- 
sible to  say  what  was  implied  in  that  tradition.  When- 
ever she  should  do  so  all  were  prepared  to  abide  by  her 
judgment,  whatever  might  be  their  own  private  opin- 
ions, or  the  results  reached  by  their  own  studies. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  until  that  judgment 
was  pronounced  nothing  had  been  done  to  remove  those 
doubts  or  to  correct  those  mistakes  relating  to  certain 
books,  which  had  been  occasioned  by  the  speculations 
in  which  some  early  critics  indulged.  For  it  is  certain, 
that  both  through  her  chief  Pastors  and  the  decrees  of 
national  as  well  as  provincial  councils  approved  by  them, 
the  Church  as  soon  as  the  storms  of  persecution  sub- 


Includes  the  Dciitcro  Books.  595 

sided  and  she  was  at  liberty  to  do  her  whole  duty,  did 
trace  for  the  guidance  of  all  a  chart  from  which  she 
herself  never  deviated,  and  which  being  subsequently 
promulgated  in  a  more  formal  manner  must,  as  it  always 
has  done  since,  have  served  to  designate  unerringly  all 
those  books  which  constitute  the  canon  of  Scripture. 
The  doubts  and  mistakes  here  referred  to  extended  to 
several  books  belonging  to  both  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  and  now  included  in  the  Protestant  as  well 
as  the  Catholic  canon.  Some  or  all  of  them  were  abso- 
lutely excluded  from  the  canon  by  some  writers  and 
regarded  with  suspicion  by  others.  Besides  these 
books  there  were  others,  which,  though  not  found  in 
the  Catholic  or  Protestant  canon,  were  assigned  by 
certain  Fathers  some  to  the  Old,  others  to  the  New 
Testament.  And  indeed  quite  a  number  of  proto-books 
belonging  to  either  Testament  were,  as  we  have  seen, 
contemptuously  repudiated  by  various  Christian  sects. 

However,  so  far  as  the  doubts  and  mistakes  of  ancient 
orthodox  writers  related  to  the  Old  Testament  deutero 
books — the  point  with  which  we  are  more  immediately 
concerned — the}-  could  not  have  been  well  avoided. 
For  it  appears  it  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  second 
century,  it  may  be  the  commencement  of  the  third,  that 
Christian  scholars  generally  understood  that  their  can- 
on was  more  comprehensive  than  that  of  the  Jews, 
which  in  some  way  unknown  to  all  but  the  Rabbinical 
doctors  had  been  alread}^  contracted  by  lopping  off 
several  books,  which  until  the  commencement  of  the 
second  century  had  been  long  approved  by  the  Hellen- 
ists and  Palestinianists,  or  at  least,  tolerated  by  the  latter, 
and  which  the  Church  had  received  from  the  hands  of 
the  Apostles.  Not  aware  of  the  means  by  which,  or 
the  purpose  for  which  the  divergence  between  the  two 
canons  had  been  brought  about,  and  supposing  that 
that  of  the  Jews  had  undergone  no  change,  some  Chris- 


59^  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

tian  writers  as  soon  as  they  made  the  discovery,  appear 
to  have  suspected  that  the  books  no  longer  found  among 
the  Jews  did  not  belong  to  the  canon.  With  some  of 
those  writers  this  feeling  amounted  to  no  more  than  a 
doubt;  with  others  it  grew  into  a  theory  which  derived 
strength  from  the  fact,  that  the  enumeration  of  the  sacred 
books  made  by  such  illustrious  scholars  as  Melito  and 
Origen,  though  intended  merely  to  exhibit  the  writings 
received  by  the  Jews,  was  by  some  supposed  to  be  a 
list  of  the  canonical  Scriptures  approved  by  the  Church. 
Under  these  circumstances  hesitation  and  uncertainty 
must  have  been  exhibited  in  some  quarters,  as  the 
Church  had  not  as  yet  formally  expressed  her  mind  on 
the  subject,  and  especially  as  the  advocates  of  Chris- 
tianit}' — St.  Justin  Martyr,  Origen  and  others — in  their 
controversies  with  the  Jews  declined  to  cite  the  books 
in  question.  On  such  occasions  these  books  could  not 
be  appealed  to  in  proof  of  any  doctrine  held  b}'  the 
Christians  but  denied  by  the  Jews.  Or  if  appealed  to 
by  the  former  these  were  compelled  to  admit  that  testi- 
mony derived  from  such  a  source,  whatever  might  be 
its  intrinsic  value  among  themselves,  was  for  the  time 
being  extrinsically  human.  In  other  words  they  were 
reduced  to  the  alternative  of  omitting  all  reference  to 
these  books,  or  of  granting  that  under  the  circumstances 
they  were  not  t<^  be  considered  as  possessed  of  that 
authority,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  both  parties  belonged 
to  the  other  books.  Such  admissions,  though  justified 
by  the  nature  of  the  case  and  made  for  the  sake  of 
argument,  were  probablv  construed  by  some  into  a  de- 
nial of  the  divine  authority  possessed  by  the  deutero 
books ;  and  being,  perhaps  occasionally,  made  without 
any  qualification  bv  writers,  distinguished  no  less  for 
their  ortliodox  views  than  for  their  literary  attainments, 
must  have  influenced  the  belief  of  others  who  over- 
looked the  circumstances  in  which  those  writers  were 
placed. 


Includes  the  Deidcro  Books.  597 

Nor  is  it  at  all  remarkable  that  in  the  absence  of  any 
authoritative  declaration  on  the  subject,  illustrious  saints 
and  martyrs  in  those  early  times  should  have  treated 
with  the  respect  due  to  canonical  writings,  books  that 
are  now  universally  branded  as  apocryphal.     The  origin 
claimed  by  such  of  these  books  as  were  regarded  with 
favor  by  some  of   the  primitive   Christians,  the  titles 
that  they  bore,  and  the  character  of  their  contents,  were 
well  calculated  to  deceive  any  one  who  had  nothing  to 
guide  him  but  his  own  faUible  judgment.     Even  then, 
however  when  the  question  of  the  canon  was  a  compar- 
atively unimportant  one,  and  in  fact  received  no  atten- 
tion outside  the  contracted  circle  of  those  to  whom  the 
study   of  the   Scriptures  was  a  specialty  ;  not  one    of 
those  who  had  access  to  the  primitive  and   authentic 
sources  of  ecclesiastical  knowledge,  could  have  had  any 
difficulty  in   selecting  out  of   a   vast   accumulation    of 
professedlv    sacred    literature    that    very    catalogue    of 
books  •  which,  after  the  impieties  and  absurdities  of  pre- 
ceding sectarists  had  become  crystalized  in  the  errors  of 
the  Protestant  system,  and  the  authors  of  that  system 
had  adopted  the  Old  Testament  canon  foisted  on  the 
deluded  Jews  bv  the  perfidy  of  their  astute  Rabbins  ; 
was  drawn  up  and  approved  by  the  Council  of  Trent 
on  the  eighth  day  of  April  in  the  year  1546. 

After  enumerating  "all  the  books  both  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament"  of  "  both  "  of  which  "  one  God  is 
the  author,"  the  Holy  and  Ecumenical  Council  adds: 
"  But  if  any  one  receive  not,  as  sacred  and  canonical, 
the  same  books,  entire  with  all  their  parts,  as  they  have 
been  used  to  be  read  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  as 
they  are  contained  in  the  old  Latin  Vulgate  edition  .... 
let  him  be  anathema."  This  decree  is  final  for  all  Cath- 
olics, and  ought  to  be  so  for  all  who  believe  that  God 
has  given  the  Scriptures  as  a  revelation  of  His  divine 
will  to  mankind. 


598  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

First.  Because  it  belongs  to  the  Church  to  decide  all 
questions  pertaining  to  faith  and  morals. 

Second.  Because,  according  to  the  statements  of 
those  Fathers  whose  testimony  is  considered  as  most 
authoritative  oy  all  Christians,  the  right  to  declare 
especially  what  is  or  is  not  canonical  Scripture  is  vested 
in  the  Church, 

Third.  Because,  in  determining  the  canon  of  Script- 
ure particularly,  the  Church  is  infallible,  a  fact  which 
in  their  own  principles  must  be  admitted  by  all  who 
hold  the  Bible  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  else  their  belief 
is  irrational. 

These  points  we  proceed  to  prove,  not  by  appealing 
to  the  Scriptures,  which  in  discussing  the  same  subjects 
are  cited  to  good  purpose  by  Catholic  writers,  as  may 
be  seen  in  their  theological  treatises  and  controversial 
works,  but  by  addressing  the  common  sense  of  thought- 
ful Christians.  For,  in  fact  among  that  class  of  believers 
the  three  propositipns  just  stated  must  pass  as  little 
short  of  axiomatic,  at  least  they  must  appear  self-evident 
to  all  who  have  carefully  perused  the  writings  of  the 
primitive  Fathers  as  well  as  the  contents  of  the  Bible. 
Yet  a  word  or  so  on  the  two  first  in  this  chapter.  In 
the  next  chapter  the  attention  of  the  reader  will  be  di- 
rected to  the  third. 

As  to  the  first  proposition  ;  if  it  be  asked,  for  what 
purpose  does  a  man  connect  himself  with  a  religious 
denomination  ?  Is  it  not  (the  answer  must  be)  that  he 
may  derive  advantage  from  the  instruction,  which  as  a 
member  he  is  to  i-eceive  in  faith  and  morals?  And  does 
it  not  follow  from  this,  that  the  man  in  question  practi- 
cally admits  that  the  denomination,  to  which  he  has  at- 
tached himself,  through  its  teachers,  its  approved  books, 
its  councils,  its  synods  or  conventions,  has  the  right  to 
instruct  him  ;  and  that  it  is  his  duty,  to  regulate  his  be- 
lief and  conduct  accordingly,  so  long  as  he  remains  a 


Includes  the  Detitero  Books.  599 

member  of  it  ?  Now  if  such  be  the  authority  exercised 
by  every  sectarian  organization,  and  freely  conceded  to 
it  by  all  who  claim  membership  therein,  no  reasonable 
person  will  deny,  that  it  belongs  to  the  Church  to  de- 
cide for  Catholics,  at  least  all  questions,  in  which  their 
faith  or  their  morals  are  concerned.  Hence  as  God's 
revealed  zvord  is  as  it  were  the  standard  for  the  regu- 
lation of  Christian  belief  and  practice,  it  is  clearly  the 
right,  as  well  as  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  declare  at  all 
events  to  Catholics  what  constitutes  that  zvord,  and  it  is 
just  as  clearly  a  matter  of  strict  obligation  for  all  Cath- 
olics to  submit  unreservedly  to  her  decrees  on  the  sub- 
ject. But  an  intelligent  reader  will  go  a  step  farther 
and  maintain  on  the  same  irrefragable  principle,  that  not 
only  CathoHcs  but  Protestants  are  bound  to  hear  the 
Church  defining  what  is,  or  is  not.  Canonical  Scripture. 
For  when  she  did  so,  not  only  did  she  address  all  who 
claimed  to  be  members  of  the  Christian  fold,  but  she 
declared,  as  we  have  seen,  the  belief  of  entire  Eastern 
Christendom,  as  well  as  of,  by  far,  the  greatest  part  of 
Western  Christendom.  Her  voice  then  was  the  voice 
not  only  of  the  Oriental  Schismatics,  but  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  all  nations.  East  and  West  at  that  time  in 
communion  with  her.  For  they  all  in  professing  their 
belief  in  her  Canon  actually  proclaimed  it  to  be  the 
identical  instrument  transmitted  to  them  from  all  past 
generations.  Whereas  those,  who  drew  up  the  Protes- 
tant canon,  represented  none  but  themselves  and  their 
followers  in  England  and  Germany,  between  whom  the 
canon  (if  even  it)  was  almost  the  only  point  of  doctrinal 
agreement.  And  that  canon  was  different  from  the  one 
they  had  received  from  their  forefathers  ;  so  that  when 
offered  to  the  East,  it  was,  as  we  have  found,  summarily 
and  scornfully  rejected  by  that  large  and  ancient  sec- 
tion of  Christendom.  Nor  has  it  been  ever,  nor  is  it 
now,  received  by  all  Protestants  as  it  issued  from  the 


6oo  TJlc  Cajioii  of  the  Old  Testament. 

hands  of  its  authors.  And  after  all  what  right  had  those 
men  who  formulated  the  Protestant  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  stamp  canonical  on  some  books,  and  apoc- 
ryphal on  others?  Not  more  than  their  followers  who 
claimed  none  whatever,  but  simply  and  blindly  followed 
their  leaders.  The  latter,  so  they  confess,  rejected  cer- 
tain books  because  they  were  rejected  by  contemporary 
Jews,  and  doubted  by  some  early  Christians.  To  be 
consistent  those  mutilators  of  the  canon  should  have 
denied  the  divinity  of  Christ,  because  that  was  denied 
all  through  by  the  Jews,  and  denied  also  by  what  was 
for  a  long  time  a  numerically  respectable 'class  of  Chris- 
tian sectarists.  Beyond  the  very  questionable  example 
of  the  Jews,  who  of  course  rejected  the  whole  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  the  hazy  testimony  of  a  few  early 
Christian  writers  the  mutilators  had  no  warrant  for  the 
conclusion  they  reached,  if  we  except  a  liberal  use  of 
sophistry,  assumption  and  misrepresentation.  On  the 
other  hand  those  who  at  Trent  drew  up  a  catalogue  of 
canonical  books,  besides  being  humanly  speaking  pre- 
eminently fitted  for  the  task,  and  inheriting  the  learning 
and  traditions  handed  down  in  ancient  churches,  some 
of  them  coeval  with  the  Apostles,  claimed  in  their  con- 
ciliar  capacity  to  be  guided  in  their  utterance  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  With  people  swayed  by  their  prejudices 
that  claim  may  not  amount  to  much.  But  the  reason- 
able Protestant  trained  to  habits  of  reflection  \\\\\  admit, 
that  without  it  the  Bible  is  no  more  to  mankind  than 
any  other  book,  and  will  hesitate  before  he  condemns  as 
apocryphal,  writings  approved  by  the  Catholic  Church. 
Our  second  proposition  will  not  be  denied  by  many 
unprejudiced  scholars,  who  have  devoted  any  attention 
to  patristic  studies.  Yet,  in  order  to  convince  the  general 
reader  of  its  truth,  a  few  citations  must  be  made  from 
the  works  of  some  among  the  earliest  and  most  respect- 
able Christian   Fathers,  who  have  written  on  the  sub- 


Includes  the  Dcutcro  Books.  60 1 

ject.  And  therefore  our  inquiry  will  be  confined  to 
the  statements  of  writers,  Avho  lived  between  the  second 
and  fifth  centuries,  a  period,  during  which  such  ordin- 
ances, as  the  Apostles  had  enacted  for  the  progress  and 
preservation  of  the  Church,  could  not  have  lost  much 
of  their  force  or  have  become  utterl}^  obsolete. 

Our  first  and  earliest  witness  is  St.  Irenceus  the  Mar- 
tyred Bishop  of  Lyons,  in  Gaul.  He  was  a  disciple  of 
St.  Polycarp,  himself  a  disciple  of  St.  John  the  Apostle. 
Born  early  in  the  second  century  at  Smyrna,  of  which 
city  Pol3-carp  was  Bishop,  Iren^us  was  afterwards 
promoted  to  the  See  of  Lyons.  He  was  thus  enabled 
to  become  familiar  with  the  rules  and  traditions  pre- 
vailing in  Western  as  well  as  Eastern  Christendom.  In 
at  least  one  part  of  his  writings,  '  he  has  taken  occasion 
to  refer  to  what  he  calls  "  the  greatest  and  most  ancient 
church,  known  to  all,  founded  and  established  at  Rome 
by  the  two  most  glorious  apostles  Peter  and  Paul,"  and 
declares  that  "  with  this  church,  on  account  of  her  most 
pow^erful  principality,  it  is  necessary  that  every  church, 
that  is,  the  faithful,  who  are  on  all  sides,  should  agree,  ' 
in  which  (church),  by  those  who  are  on  all  sides  the 
apostolic  tradition  has  been  always  preserved." '  Ob- 
serve, our  illustrious  witness  does  not  say,  that  all 
churches  should  agree  together,  or  that  the  Church  at 
Rome  should  agree  with  the  Church  at  Jerusalem,  or  the 
Chuixh  at  Antioch,  or  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  or  with 
all  other  churches  singly  or  collectively,  but  that  every 
church  that  is  tJie  faitJiful  on  all  sides  as  church  members 
should  agree  with  the  Church  at  Rome,  on  account  of 
her  more  powerful  principality — sovereignty,  superior- 
ity, pre-eminence. 

Elsewhere  ^  Irenasus  says  that  the  bishops  and  priests 

1  Adv.  Hares.  1.  Ill,  c.  iii.  >ji  2. 

"  Vide  Kenrick  on  the  Primacy  of  the  Apostolic  See,  p.  86.  note  and  The 
Faith  of  Catholics  vol.   II.  p.  3.  note. 

3  Adv.  Hares.  L.  iv.  c.  xxvi.  s.  5.  Ibid.  c.  xxxii.  s.  I. 


6o2  The  Cajion  of  the  Old  Testame7it. 

safely  expound  the  Scriptures  to  us,  and  that  if  any  one 

believes  in  one  God  who  made  all  things he  begins 

at  a  point,  whence  he  may  reach  the  true  religion  :  all  of 
which  will  be  brought  to  his  knowledge,  if  he  reads  the 
Scripture  with  those,  who  are  the  priests  in  the  Church 
and  possess  the  apostolic  doctrine.  It  appears  therefore 
from  these  and  other  statements  of  our  Saint,  that  when 
he  wrote,  the  Scriptures  were  generally  used  and  ex- 
plained by  the  Clergy  to  the  people,  and  that  they  ex- 
isted in  a  well  known  collection.  Iren^eus  also  states  ,' 
that  they  were  corrupted,  mutilated,  and  distorted  by 
the  heretics  of  his  day,  so  that  for  man}^  it  must  have 
been  difficult  to  say,  what  was  or  was  not  scripture  ; 
what  was  or  was  not  its  meaning.  Under  these  circum- 
stances various  questions  connected  with  the  Scriptures 
must  then  have  pressed  for  a  solution.  We  dare  not  say, 
that  the  limits  of  the  sacred  records  had  been  clearly 
defined  when  Irenseus  wrote,  or  that  what  we  understand 
by  the  canon  of  Scripture  had  been  already  formulated. 
But  let  us  suppose,  that  any  controversy  had  arisen  on 
this  or  any  other  point  connected  with  the  Scripture, 
how  was  that  controversy  to  be  settled  ?  Irenasus  an- 
swers, by  every  Church,  that  is  the  faithful  everywhere, 
agreeing  with  the  church  at  Rome.  According  to  this 
rule,  whenever  a  Pope  from  Peter,  who  first  governed 
the  church  at  Rome  to  Paul  III.  under  whose  pontifi- 
cate the  Tridentine  canon  was  approved,  either  appealed 
to  the  deutero  books,  or  actually  pronounced  them  ca- 
nonical, and  several  of  them  did  one  or  other ;  every 
christian  throughout  the  world  was  bound  to  accept 
such  action,  as  the  only  standard  by  which  he  was  Xx> 
regulate  his  belief  concerning  the  canon  of  Scripture. 

Now  let  us  hear  Tertullian  on  the  same  subject.  This 
celebrated  African  scholar  commenced  his  career  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  second  century,  and  died  in  the  early 

1  Ibid.  L.  I.  c.  I.  s.  3.  Ibid.  c.  III.  s.  6.  Ibid.  L.  II.  c.  xix.  s.  8,  etc. 


Include!,  the  Deutero  Books.  603 

part  of  the  third.     In  his  writings  he  has  dwelt  on  sev- 
eral points  already  treated  by  Irenaeus,  notably  that  one, 
to  which  we  have  just  referred.     TertuUian's  rule  for 
the  determination  of  doctrine  is  substantially  identical 
with  that  laid  down  by  Iren^us.     The  only  difference 
between  them  arises  from  the  difference  of  classes,  by 
which  the  rule  was  to  be  applied.     Irena^us  wrote  prin- 
cipally for  the  churches  and  the  faithful  in  their  dioces- 
an capacity.     TertuUian's  instruction  was  intended  for 
Christians  generally  as  individuals,  few  of  whom  could 
communicate  with  the  Cluirch  at  Rome;  and  he  there- 
fore  directed   them    to    consult    the   nearest   apostolic 
church,  that  being  no  doubt  in  his  opinion  the  same  as 
to  consult  the   Roman   Church,  with   which  all   other 
Apostohc  churches  were  then  necessarily  in  communion. 
But  let  us  hear  TertuUian  himself :  "  Come  then,  you, 
who  wish  to  exercise  your  curiosity  to  better  advantage 
in  the  affair  of  salvation  ;  run  over  the  apostolic  churches 
in  which   the  very  chairs  of  the  apostles  continue   to 
preside  over  their  own  places,  in  which  their  authentic 
letters  are  read,  echoing  the  voice,  and/epresenting  the 
face  of  each  one.   Is  Achaia  near  you  ?  you  have  Corinth. 
If  you  are  not  far  from  Macedonia  you  have  the  Philippi, 
you  have  the  Thessalonians.     If  you  can  go  to  Asia,  you 
have  Ephesus.     If  you  are  near  Italy,  you  have  Rome, 
whence  we  also  derive  our  authority.    How  happy  that 
Church,  to  which  the  Apostles  poured  forth  their  whole 
doctrine  together  with  their  blood,  where  Peter  passed 
through  the  Lord's  passion,  where  Paul  is  crowned  with 
the  death  of  John, '  where  the  Apostle  John,  after  emer- 
ging safely  out  of  the  boiling  oil  into  which  he  had  been 
plunged,  w^as  banished  to  an  island,  let  us  see  wdiat  she 
learned,  what  she  taught,  since  she  provided  the  Afri- 
can churches  also  with  the  countersign."  [cum  Africanis 
quoque  ecclesiis   contesserarit]  '     Thus  the  individual 

1  The   Baptist.  '   Liber    De  Frccscrip.  c.  xxxvi. 


6o4  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

enquirer  atter  truth,  in  TertuUian's  opinion,  might  apply 
to  any  of  the  Apostolic  churches  to  which  he  was  nearest; 
but  more  especially  to  Rome  preeminent  among  all  the 
rest  for  so  many  reasons— Rome,  with  which  all  the  other 
churches  were  then  so  closely  linked  in  the  bonds  of  Chris- 
tian unity.  And  had  that  enquirer  been  anxious  to  ascer- 
tain the  true  canon  of  Scripture  according  to  Tertullian, 
he  had  to  seek  for  information  from  the  same  quarter. 

But  TertuUian's  statements  made  elsewhere  '  for  the 
purpose  of  marking  the  distinction  between  genuine 
and  spurious  scriptures  are  still  more  to  our  purpose. 
"  To  sum  up  "  says  he  "  if  it  is  certain  that  that  is  truest 
which  is  most  ancient,  that  most  ancient  which  is  even 
from  the  beginning,  that  from  the  beginning  which  is 
from  the  Apostles  ;  it  will  in  like  manner  also  be  cer- 
tain, that  that  has  been  handed  down  by  the  Apostles, 
which  shall  have  been  held  sacred  by  the  churches  of 
the  Apostles.  Let  us  see  what  milk  the  Corinthians 
drained  from  Paul ;  after  what  rule  the  Galatians 
were  reformed  ;  what  the  Philippians,  the  Thessalonians, 
the  Ephesians  read ;  also  what  the  Romans  close 
at  hand  trumpet  forth,  to  whom  both  Peter  and 
Paul  left  the  Gospel  sealed  also  with  their  blood.  We. 
have  also  the  churches  that  John  taught.  For  although 
Marcion  rejects  his  Apocalypse,  nevertheless  the  suc- 
cession of  bishops  counted  up  to  their  origin,  will  stand 

by  John  as  the  author I  say  therefore  that  Gospel 

of  Luke  which  we  are  principally  defending,  holds  its 
place,  from  the  first  of  its  publication,  amongst  the 
churches,  not  the  apostolic  alone,  but  all  who  are  cov- 
enanted with  them  by  the  fellowship  of  religion;  whilst 
that  of  Marcion  is  to  most  not  known,  and  known  to 
none  except  to  be  condemned.  ....  The  same  authority 
of  the  apostolic  churches  will  defend  the  other  Gospels 
also,  which  accordingly  we  have  through  these  churches, 

'  Adv.  Marcion.  1.  iv.  c.  5. 


Includes  the  Deutcro  Books.  605 

and  according  to  these  churches,  I  mean  the  Gospel   of 
John  and  Matthew,  etc." 

TertuUian  knew  of  but  one  way  by  which  the  Script- 
ure as  a  divine  record  could   be  defended  against  its 
assailants,  and  that  was  by  appealing  to  the  teachings  of 
the  churches,  not  the  apostolic  alone,  but  all  others  in 
communion  with  them,  in  other  words  to  the  doctnne 
held  by  the  Church  in  her  corporate  capacity.     Was 
not  this  the  plan  adopted  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when 
it  became  necessary  to  vindicate  the  integrity   of  the 
New  as  well  as  the  Old  Testament  against  the  impious 
attempts  of  the  Marcions,  who  appeared  at  that  time? 
Origen  also,  who  was  born  at  Alexandria  in   185  and 
died  at  Tyre  in  255,  made  use  of  the  same  method  for 
ascertaining  the  genuine  Scriptures.     In  his  celebrated 
answer  to  Africanus,  who  had  urged   against  deutero 
Daniel  several  objections  no  doubt  then  and  certainly 
afterwards'  popular  among  the  Jews,   Origen  after  a 
brief   introduction    says :    "  Know,   therefore   what  we 
ought  to  do,  not  merely  with  regard  to  what  relates  to 
Susanna,  which,  according  to  the  Greeks,  is  circulated 
in  Greek  throughout  the  whole  Church  of  Christ,  nor  as 
regards,  as  you  have  stated  the  case,  the  two  other  sec- 
tions which  are  at  the   end   of    the   Book  (of    Daniel), 
written  about  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  neither  of  which  is 
written  in  the  Daniel  of  the  Jews,  but  also  with  regard 
to  countless  other  portions  of  the  Scripture,"  of  which 
portions  he  gives  several  examples.     Then  he  ironically 
tells  Africanus  that  "  It  is  time,  therefore,  unless  these 
things  are  hidden  from  us,  to  reject  the  copies  circulated 
in  the  churches,  and  to  make  it  a  law  for  the  brotherhood 
to  set  aside  the  sacred  books  circulated  amongst  them, 
and  to  flatter  and  persuade  the  Jews  in  order  that  they 
may  communicate  them  to  us,  pure  and  free  from  what 
is  false.     Has  then,  that  providence  which,  in  the  holy 

1  Vide,  Jerome  Pref.  to  Daniel. 


6o6  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

writings  has  given  edification  to  the  churches  of  Christ, 
had  no  care  of  those  who  had  been  bought  with  a  price, 
for  whom  Christ  died;  ivhom  tJiough  His  Son,  God,  who  is 
charity,  spared  not  but  delivered  Him  up  for  us  all,  that, 
with  Him  He  might  give  ns  all  things  ?  Moreov'^er,  con- 
sider whether  it  is  not  good  to  bear  in  mind  that  sa3ang : 
TJiou  shalt  not  remove  the  e7>erlasting  laiid-marks  ivhich  thy 
forefathers  have  set!'^  Farther  on  Origen  remarks  inci- 
dentally that  "  the  Jews  do  not  use  the  book  of  Tobias, 
nor  that  oi  Judith,  for  they  have  not  them  even  in  their 
apocrvpha  in  Hebrew  as  I  have  learned  from  them  : 
but  since  the  Churches  use  Tobias,  we  ought  to  know 
that  in  the  captivit}-,"  etc. "" 

How  indispensable  Origen  considered  the  authority 
of  the  Church  as  a  means,  indeed  the  only  means  of 
ascertaining  the  genuine  Scriptures,  appears  still  more 
clearly  from  what  he  has  written  regarding  the  Gospels. 
Thus  Eusebius  ^  relates  that  Origen  "  in  the  first  book 
of  his  commentaries  on  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  attests 
that  he  knows  of  only  four  Gospels  as  follows."  'As  I 
have  understood  from  tradition  respecting  the  four 
Gospels,  which  are  the  only  undisputed  ones  in  the 
whole  Church  of  God.'  The  principle  here  insisted  on 
is  more  fully  expressed  in  his  first  Homil}-  on  St.  Luke's 
Gospel,  where  he  says  "  There  are  only  four  approved 
Gospels,  from  which  dogmas  are  adduced  under  the 
person  of  Our  Lord  and  Saviour.  I  know  a  certain 
Gospel  according  to  Thomas,  one  according  to  Ma- 
thias,  and  we  have  read  many  more,  on  account  of  those 
who  think  they  know  something,  if  thev  know  them. 
But  in  all  these,  we  approve  of  nothing  else  than,  what 
the  Church  approves,  that  is,  that  only  four  Gospels  are  to  he 
received^  As  much  as  to  sa}"  out  of  the  innumerable 
Gospels  now  in  circulation  I  select  but  four,  Matthew's, 
Mark's,    Luke's,    and  John's;    and   that  solely  because 

I  §  4.  M  12.  ^   Hist.  Eales.   L.  vi..  c.  25. 


Liclndcs  the  Dciiicro  Books.  607 

the  Church  directs  that  only  these  four  are  to  be  re- 
ceived. 

Here  it  is  right  to  observe  that  the  fact  for  which  we 
are  contending,  is  further  proved  by  all  that  has  been 
written  throughout  the  period  included  in  the  present 
enquiry,  to  demonstrate  the  existence  and  necessity  of 
doctrinal  unity  in  the  Church.  On  that  point  Clement 
of  Rome,  Ignatius,  Justin,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and 
others  including  the  three  to  whose  authority  reference 
has  just  been  made,  have  insisted  with  great  earnestness. 
But  in  the  mind  of  those  and  succeeding  Fathers,  doc- 
trinal unit}'  implied  a  certain  fixed  symbol,  with  all  that 
logically  flowed  from  it,  since  without  such  symbol,  as 
they  urged,  the  existence  of  a  Church  is  inconceivable. 
Now*  the  Church  being  professedly  based  on  a  divine 
revelation  communicated  in  certain  writings,  her  symbol 
or  creed  must  contain  an  explicit  declaration  as  to  the 
nature  and  extent  of  that  revelation,  as  soon  as  it  is 
known  that  God  has  made  it.  This  no  one  can  reason- 
ably deny.  In  fact  all  Protestant  denominations  are 
now  generally  agreed  among  each  other  as  to  the  limits 
and  nature  of  written  revelation.  In  order,  therefore, 
that  the  Church  should  be  one  in  belief,  as  the  Fathers 
maintain,  it  became  necessary  that  as  soon  as  the  collec- 
tion of  divine  writings  was  completed  and  brought  to 
her  knowledge,  she  should  have  a  canon  of  Scripture, 
else  her  doctrinal  unity  would  have  been  but  a  delusion. 
But  the  Fathers  all  contended  that  she  was  really  in- 
vested with  this  divine  characteristic,  and  it  therefore 
evidently  follows,  that  when  they  argued,  as  all  of  them 
did,  that  unity  was  a  fundamental  principle  in  her  con- 
stitution, and  should  be  cherished  and  maintained  by  all 
her  childi-en  ;  they  meant  thereby  to  sav  that  all  were 
bound  to  accept  her  canon  of  Scripture  whatever  that 
was,  and  to  repudiate  every  other  instrument  of  the 
same  kind  as  unauthorized.     When,  therefore,  we  hear 


6o8  The  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament . 

Cj'prian,  Bishop  of  Carthage  who  suffered  martyrdom 
in  258,  urging  the  faithful  to  ''  repel  and  shun  every  man 
whoever  he  be,  who  separates  fi'om  the  Church,"  add- 
ing that  "  whoever  isolates  himself  condemns  himself,'" 
and  remarking  in  his  letter  "  to  Antonianus  a  Bishop  of 
Numidia  in  reference  to  Novatian,  a  then  notorious 
heretic,  that  "  we  ought  not  to  be  curious  as  to  what  he 
teaches  outside  (the  Church);  whosoever  he  be,  and 
whatever  he  be,  he  is  no  Christian  who  is  not  in  the 
Church,"  one  may  reasonably  conclude  that  the  holy 
mart)^r  would  have  had  no  patience  with  any  proud 
spirit,  who  dared  to  reject  sacred  writings  received  by 
the  Church,  for  that  would  be  teaching  outside.  And 
ever}^  student  of  patristic  literature  is  well  aware  that 
such  sentiments  were  common  to  those  great  saints  and 
writers,  who  in  early  times  ennobled  their  faith  by  their 
virtues,  or  defended  it  with  their  pens. 

A  candid  inquirer  will  also  find,  that  St.  Cyril,  Bishop 
of  Jerusalem,  who  died  in  386,  though  b}'  telling  his  dis- 
ciples to  "  read  the  divine  scriptures,  these  twenty-two 
books  of  the  old  testament"  he  seems  to  adopt  the  then 
Jewish  canon;  3-et  as  he  adds  "immediately"  which 
(twenty-two  books)  the  seventy-two  interpreters  trans- 
lated "  ^  shows  that  his  canon  was  Alexandrine  or 
Tridentine,  especially  as  the  Septuagint  is  known  to 
have  included  the  deutero  books  when  he  wrote,  and 
he  himself  admitted,  nay  insisted,  that  "that  translation 
was  the  product  not  of  human  knowledge,  but  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  effected  by  the  inspiration  of  that  Holy 
Spirit  bv  whom  the  scriptures  were  dictated. '  Besides, 
with  Cyril  as  with  the  other  Fathers,  in  discriminating 
between  Scripture  and  Scripture  the  authority  of  the 
Church  was  paramount  for  all.  "  Learn  also  diligently 
and  from  the  Chiireh  "  he  says  "  what  are  the  books  of 

'   Liber  de  Unitatie  Ecclesia.  xvii.  -  §.  xxiv. 

3   Cateckes,  1.  iv.  §.  xxxiii.  •»   Ibid.  ^.  xxxiv. 


Includes  the  Deutero  Books.  609 

the  old  Testament ;  what  those  of  the  New  ?  "  '  So  that 
were  it  certain  that  Cyril,  through  ignorance  of  the 
canon  used  by  the  Church,  followed  that  of  contem- 
porary Jews,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that,  when  better 
informed,  he  would  have  received  as  canonical  the  books 
rejected  by  the  existing  synagogue,  but  admitted  by  the 
Church.  Besides  he  did  himself  in  his  own  writings 
actually  appeal  to  the  authority  of  those  books,  when  he 
found  therein  anything  bearing  immediately  on  the 
questions,  with  which  he  was  dealing.  Farther  on  ^ 
after  describing  the  history  of  the  Septuagint,  and  insist- 
ing on  its  inspiration,  he  repeats:  "Read  those  twenty- 
two  books,  have  nothing  to  do  with  apocrypha.  Study 
carefully  those  alone,  which  we  read  carefully  in  the 
CJiurch  "  (for  Cyril  as  for  all  else  the  rule  in  the  matter 
was  the  practice  of  the  Church)  "  far  wiser  and  religious 
than  you  were  the  Apostles  and  ancient  bishops,  these 
rulers  of  the  Church,  who  handed  them  down  ;  do  not 
falsify  what  has  been  settled." ' 

Lucifer,  Btshop  of  Cagliari,  in  Sardinia,  whose  death 
occurred  in  370,  was  distinguished  not  only  for  his  learn- 
ing, but  for  his  strenuous  opposition  to  the  errors  of  the 
Arian  faction.  That  the  Church  in  the  Council  of 
Trent,  or  on  any  other  occasion,  could  have  canonized 
books  merely  human,  must  have  seemed  to  him,  as  it 
has  to  a  large  majority  of  Christians  at  all  times,  absurd 
as  well  as  impossible.  For  he  maintains  that  "  the  Hol)^ 
Spirit,  the  Comforter,  who  was  in  the  prophets,  re- 
mained also  in  the  Apostles,  which  same  Holy  Spirit 
si)ice  He  is  in  God's  church,  and  you  (Arians)  are  outside 
God's  Church"  etc.  All  who,  beheve  the  Christian  Re- 
ligion to  be  anything  more  than  a  human  system  of 
ethics  will  subscribe  to  Lucifer's  statement.  When  the 
Protestant  canon  appeared,    wherever  the  Church  was 

'  Ibid,  xxxiii,  -  Ihid.  xxxv.  ^  Catechesis.  iv.  0.  xxxv. 

De  non  parcend,  in  Deiim  dt'lhujueiii,  (  Bibl.  Ma.  Pat.  Tom.   iv.  p.  237. 


6io  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

there  was  the  Holy  Ghost.  That  is  certain.  But 
where  was  she?  At  Trent  or  at  Wittenberg?  And 
who  represented  her  ?  The  bishops  of  Christendom  or 
Martin  Huther  ?  Common  sense  alone,  suppHes  a  ready 
answer. 

When  a  mere  fraction  of  Christendom  rejected  the 
canon  of  the  Catholic  Church,  on  what  side  let  us  ask 
would  the  Father  have  ranged  himself,  who  wrote  "  My 
resolution  is,  to  read  the  ancients,  to  try  every  thing,  to 
hold  fast  what  is  good  and  not  to  recede  from  the 
Catholic  Church."'  Who' can  read  the  reference  to  St. 
Jerome  by  the  Anglican  establishment  in  its  6th  Article, 
without  denouncing  it  as  a  fovil  libel  on  the  fair  fame  of 
an  illustrious  writer?  who,  if  he  ever  meant  to  make  the 
Jewish  canon  his  own  before  and  especially  after  he 
wrote  his  prefaces,  showed  that  he  was  Tridentine  to 
the  core  ; — a  wn-iter,  too,  whose  rank  Romanism  displays 
itself  in  the  following  noble  words  addressed  to  Pope 
Damasus.^  "  I  have  thought  that  I  ought  to  consult  the 
chair  of  Peter,  and,  the  faith  that  was  commended  by  the 
mouth  of  an  Apostle  ....  Following  no  chief  but  Christ 
I  am  joined  in  communion  with  your  Holiness,  that  is, 
with  the  chair  of  Peter,  upon  that  rock  I  know  that  the 

church    is    built Whosoever    gathereth    not    with 

thee,  that  is;  whosoever  is  not  of  Christ  is  antichrist." 
The  reader  may  imagine  with  what  scorn  St.  Jerome, 
who  died  in  419,  would  have  regarded  the  impudent 
appeal  to  his  authority  by  the  Anglican  framers  of  the 
tiiirty-nine  articles,  had  he  been  living  at  the  time. 

Let  us  now  see  what  in  reference  to  our  second 
proposition  has  been  said  by  St.  Augustine,  who  died  in 
430.  After  speaking  of  the  preparation  b}'  which  one 
becomes  a  most  skilled  interpreter  of  the  sacred  writ- 
ings    he    proceeds  to  observe  :  "  Now,  in  regard  to  the 

'  Jereme  Ep.  ad  Minetv.  et  Alexand.    %  i\. 

*    Ep.  XV.   ^^    {I.  2). 


Includes  the  Deutcro  Books.  6i  i 

canonical  Scriptures,  he  must  follow  the  authority  of  the 
greater  number  of  Catholic  churches;  and  among  these 
of  course  a  high  place  must  be  given  to  such  as  have  been 
thought  worthy  to  be  the  seat  of  an  Apostle  and  to  receive 
epistles.  Accordingly,  among  the  canonical  Scriptures 
he  will  judge  according  to  the  following  standard  :  to  pre- 
fer those  that  are  received  b}-  all  the  Catholic  churches  to 
those  which  some  do  not  receive.  Among  those  again, 
which  are  not  received  by  all,  he  will  prefer  such,  as 
have  the  sanction  of  the  greater  number  and  those  of 
greater  authorit}',  to  such,  as  are  held  by  the  smaller 
number  and  are  of  less  authority.  But  if  he  should  find 
that  some  books  are  held  by  the  greater  number  of 
churches,  and  others  by  the  churches  of  greater  author- 
ity (though  this  is  not  very  likely  to  happen),  I  think 
that  in  such  a  case  the  authority  on  the  two  sides  is  to 
be  looked  upon  as  equal."  '  In  making  this  statement 
Augustine  must  have  intended  to  say,  either  ;  in  what 
way  one  who  knows  not  what  books  constitute  the 
canon  of  Scripture  is  to  ascertain  those  books,  or,  having 
already  discovered  that,  how  he  is  to  determine  their 
relative  value.  For  that  on  the  latter  point,  there  is  a 
difference,  as  an}^  one  will  admit,  between  the  Gospels 
and  the  rest  of  the  New  Testament,  as  well  as  between 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  book  of  Esther  for  example. 
Besides,  Augustine  having  made  the  statement  in  ques- 
tion immediately  adds  "  Now  the  entire  canon  of  Scrip- 
ture, in  regard  of  which  we  say  that  the  above  consider- 
ations are  to  be  applied  is  comprised  in  these  books." 
Here  follows  the  Tridentine  catalogue.  Now  this  last 
remark  seems  to  imply  that  "  the  skilful  interpreter" 
who  as  such  ought  to  know  the  extent  of  the  inspired 
text  has  already  really  made  up  his  mind  on  that  sub- 
ject, and  needs  to  know  the  relative  value  of  the 
different  classes  of  sacred  books,  a  point  on  which  Au- 

*  De  Doctrina  Christiatia. — L.  ii.  c.  viii.  >).  12. 


6i2  The  Canon  of  tJic  Old  Testament. 

gustinc  takes  care  to  expatiate,  as  he  proceeds  with  his 
catalogue.  It  matters  little,  however,  which  of  the  two 
meanings  actually  reflects  the  thought  ot  Augustine, 
when  he  wrote  the  statement,  since  he  maintains  through- 
out that  "  the  skilful  interpreter  of  the  sacred  script- 
ures" must  "  in  regard  to  the  canonical  scriptures  fol- 
low the  authority  of  the  greater  number  of  Catholic 
churches  ;  "  '  and  that  ajithoritj  is  known  absolutel}'  and 
without  the  possibility  of  mistake  when  the  Catholic 
churches  act  as  a  imit,  as  they  did  at  Trent,  there  sol- 
emnly proclaiming  that  to  be  the  only  true  canon  of 
Scripture  which  was  contained  in  the  Bible,  as  it  had 
circulated  all  along  throughout  the  East  as  well  as  the 
West,  and  which  had  come  to  Augustine  as  It  had  to 
all  other  Fathers  from  those  apostolic  men,  who  here 
and  there  were  among  the  first  tillers  of  the  Lord's 
vineyard.  But  aside  from  all  this  it  is  certain  that  Au- 
gustine firmly  held,  that  "  the  right  to  declare  especially 
what  is  or  is  not  canonical  Scripture  is  vested  in  the 
Church."  For  he  declares  "  I,  for  m}-  part,  would  not 
believe  the  Gospel,  unless  the  authority  of  the  Church 
moved  me  to  it."  ^  and  almost  in  the  same  breath  adds 
"  who  the  successor  of  Christ's  betrayer  was  we  read  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles ;  which  book  I  must  believe  if 
I  believe  the  gospel,  since  both  writings  rest  alike  on 
the  testimony  of  the  Catholic  Church."  ' 

The  testimony  rendered  on  the  point  before  us  by  St. 
Isidore  of  Pelusium,  who  died  in  440,  agrees  with  that 
of  Augustine.  "  Now  the  sacred  volumes,"  says  he^ 
"  which  contain  the  testimon}^  of  the  divine  Scriptures, 
are  like  ladders,  by  which  the  ascent  to  heaven  is  made. 
Wherefore  all  those,  which  are  proposed  in  the  Church, 

'  '■  In  canonicis  autem  scripturis,  ecclesiarum  catholicarum  quamplurium 
auctoritatem  sequatur.  " 

'  Contra  Ep..  Futidament.  cap.  v. 
3  Ibid. 


Includes  the  Deutero  Books.  613 

receive  as  tried  gold,  the}-  having  been  purified,  as  by 
fire,  by  the  divine  spirit  of  truth.  But  leave  aside 
whatever  books  circulate  outside  this  volume." ' 

In  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  all  these  Fathers  is 
the  doctrine  proclaimed  in  the  year  400  by  the  First 
Council  of  Toledo  in  these  words :  "  If  any  one  shall 
say,  or  shall  believe  that  other  Scriptures,  besides  those 
which  the  Catholic  Church  has  received,  are  to  be  es- 
teemed of  authority,  or  to  be  venerated,  let  him  be 
anathema."  ^ 

It  is  therefore  evident,  that  during  those  earl}-  ages, 
when  the  Christian  religion  according  to  the  general 
belief  of  intelligent  Protestants  remained  substantiallv 
what  it  had  been  in  the  time  of  the  Apostles ;  the  right 
to  distinguish  between  divine  and  human  writings,  to 
say  what  books  were  canonical,  what  apocryphal,  was 
believed  on  all  hands  to  belong  exclusively  to  the 
Church.     So  much  for  our  second  proposition. 

1  L.  I.  Ep.  Cyro.  ccclxix.  (Bib.  Max.  Pat.  Tom.  vii.  p.  570.) 

2  Can.  xii.  coll.  1228.  T.  II.  Labb.  Concil. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 


Third  and  Last.  The  Tridextixe  Canon  true  and 
unimpeachable,  else  a  belief  in  the  divinity  of 
THE  Bible  is  irrational. 

Our  third  proposition,  paradoxical  as  it  ma}'  seem  to 
man}-,  is  not  less  true;  and  can  hardly  be  considered  less 
reasonable  than  either  of  the  other  two  by  reflecting 
Protestants,  who  still  believe,  without  doubt  or  hesita- 
tion, that  the  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God.  For  if  the 
Church  be  not  infallible  in  deciding  what  is  sacred 
Scripture,  it  follows  that  it  has  never  been  and  never 
will  be  declared  by  competent  authority,  that  the  Bible 
is  a  book,  indeed  the  only  book,  of  which  God  Himself 
is  the  Author.  We  say  competent  authority,  meaning 
thereby  a  formal  decision  emanating  from  a  tribunal 
supernatural  in  its  constitution  and  inerrable  in  its  judg- 
ments. On  this  point  we  insist,  since  it  is  evident  that 
mere  human  testimony  is  wholly  inadequate  to  prove 
that  the  Bible  is,  as  all  Christians  believe,  not  the  pro- 
duction of  fallible  man,  but  of  the  infallible  God.  To 
believe,  for  example,  that  the  epistle  ascribed  to  Barn- 
abas was  really  written  by  that  apostle  and  is  veracious 
is  one  thing  ;  to  believe  that  that  epistle  is  canonical  is 
another  thing  altogether.  The  genuineness  and  cre.di- 
bilitv  of  any  book,  whether  really  or  only  professedly  sac- 
red scripture,  are  questions  with  which,  before  it  is  au- 
thoritatively placed  on  the  canon,  human  testimony  is 
competent  to  deal.    But  whether  a  book  be  canonical  or 

614 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  615 

not  is  one,  which  mere  human  testimony  cannot  decide. 
Were  the  autograph  of  the  Epistle  said  to  have  been  ad- 
dressed by  St.  Paul  to  the  Laodiceans  discovered,  and 
evidence  at  hand  proving  it  to  be  the  work  of  that 
Apostle  ;  it  would  not  therefore  be  canonical,  that  is,  a 
book  whose  contents  were  dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  therefore  to  be  followed  as  a  guide  in  faith  and 
morals.  For  it  might  not  treat  of  either.  And  whether 
it  did  or  not ;  as  no  merely  human  tribunal  is  capable  of 
deciding  in  all  cases  what  according  to  conscience  is  to 
be  believed,  what  is  to  be  done  or  not  done ;  the  ques- 
tion would  be  one,  on  which  an  infallible  tribunal  would 
have  to  pass  judgment ;  else  it  would  remain  forever  a 
matter  of  doubt  and  conjecture :  and  this  the  more  so 
as  the  canonicity  of  a  book  implies  its  inspiration,  a 
point  certainly  to  be  decided  by  God  Himself,  or  those 
whom  he  may  have  delegated  for  the  purpose. 

Testimony,  therefore,  in  all  respects  purely  human, 
though  often  sufficient  to  test  the  genuinness  and  credi- 
bility of  written  documents,  can  never  lead  to  that 
degree  of  certainty,  which  is  absolutely  necessary;  when 
it  is  to  be  decided  whether  they  are  to  be  admitted 
to  a  place  among  the  canonical  scriptures.  Yet  Prot- 
estants have  no  better  warrant  for  believing  that  the 
books  in  their  Bible  are  canonical ;  and  must,  if  they 
would  avoid  the  imputation  of  blind  fanaticism,  admit 
that  Richard  Baxter, — one  among  the  few  honest  old 
preachers  ot  whom  they  can  boast, — told  the  plain,  un- 
varnished truth,  when  referring  to  the  method  by  which 
Protestants  "prove  scripture  the  word  of  God,"  he 
confessed  that  "  godly  ministers  and  Christians  tell 
them  so,  it  is  impious  to  doubt  it,  and  therefore  they 
believe  it." '  Water  can  never  rise  higher  than  its 
source  without  the  application  of  a  force  outside  itself. 
So  the  human  testimony  of  even  "ghostly  ministers," 

'  Saints  Rest.     Part  ii.  Chap.  ii.  p.  159.  Carter's  ed.  N.V.  1855. 


6i6  TJic  Canon  of  tJie  Old  Testament 

or  for  that  matter,  of  all  the  sects  they  represent,  with- 
out supernatural  assistance,  which  they  do  not,  because 
they  cannot  claim,  has  never  been  and  never  will  be 
able  to  furnish  an  intelligent  Protestant  with  what,  he 
might  consider,  a  conclusive  and  satisfactory  proof  of 
the  canonicity  commonly  claimed  by  Protestant  christ- 
ians for  the  books  contained  in  their  bible. 

So  much  for  the  value  of  external  human  testimony 
as  bearing  on  the  canonicity  of  the  Scriptures.  But 
what  about  the  internal  evidence  which  the  scriptures 
themselves  render  in  favor  of  their  own  canonicity  ? 
Well.  This  exactly.  Such  evidence,  whatever  it  be,  is 
simply  human;  to  say  that  it  is  anything  more  is  to  assert 
what  has  to  be  proved — that  the  books  of  the  Bible  are 
canonical.  Among  men  of  common  sense,  whatever, 
be  their  creed,  it  is  therefore  a  settled  point  that  the 
canonicity  of  the  books  in  the  Bible  cannot  be  established 
by  anything  contained  in  the  Bible.  In  fact  during  the 
palmiest  days  of  Protestantism,  when  the  very  punctua- 
tion ot  the  Bible  was  believed  by  the  enthusiastic  admir- 
ers of  the  reformation  to  be  the  work  of  God  ;  "  There 
were  differences  among  themselves"  says  Professor 
Smith  of  Aberdeen  "  as  to  the  value  of  the  Apocrypha 
(deutero  scriptures)  on  the  one  hand,  and  as  to  the  can- 
onicity of  Esther  and  some  other  books  on  the  Old  can- 
on on  the  other."  '  And  it  is  well  known  that  Semler '^ 
and  his  school  in  Germany  has  made  sad  havoc  of  the 
Protestant  canon  in  that  country.  Neither  can  the  can- 
onicity of  a  single  book  in  the  Bible  be  proved  by  any 
thing  recorded  therein  as  spoken  b}^  Christ,  or  written 
by  the  authors  of  the  Old  or  New  Testament.  To  as- 
sert the  contrary  is  equivalent  to  saying.;  that  a  contested 
will  proves  its  own  genuineness,  when  there  is  no  one 
to  verify  the  signatures  of  the  witnesses  or  that  of  the 

1  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  42. 

2  Kitto's  Cycl.  vol.  i.  p.  377.   (canon). 


Settled  so/e/j'  by  the  Church.  617 

testator;  or  to  testify  that  in  his  presence  or  hearing-,  the 
latter  directed  that  such  disposition  should  be  made  of 
his  estate  as  the  instrument  in  question  expressed. 

To  man}^  it  may  seem  little  short  of  impiety,  to  argue 
that  nothing  said  b}^  Our  Lord,  nothing  written  by  any 
of  His  Apostles,  or  by  any  of  those  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  the  Old  Testament,  can  demonstrate  that 
the  books  of  the  Bible  are  canonical.  But  let  us  look 
at  the  Bible  as  rational  beings.  The  entire  Bible  was 
not  finished  for  many  years  after  Our  Lord  had  disap- 
peared from  the  world  ;  and  neither  Himself  nor  His 
Apostles  are  now  present  to  bear  testimony  to  the  con- 
tents of  that  volume.  Besides,  since  first  written  it  has 
been  copied  and  translated  times  without  number,  some- 
times faithfully,  but  often  far  otherwise,  as  the  state  of 
the  text  abundantly  proves.  Thousands  of  years  have 
passed,  not  only  since  its  first  book  was  written,  but 
since  every  autograph  of  every  Old  Testament  book 
especially  has  disappeared,  when  and  how  no  one  can 
tell.  And  the  fate  that  has  befallen  the  original  copies 
of  the  Old,  has  long  since  overtaken  those  of  the  New, 
at  most  within  a  few  centuries  after  the  last  of  its  in- 
vSpired  writers  had  passed  away.  Besides,  the  contents 
of  the  \yhole  volume  are  such,  that  even  if  we  suppose 
the  text  to  be  now  what  it  was  originally,  it  would  be 
possible  for  readers  of  all  grades  to  draw,  as  they  do  at 
present,  the  most  contradictor}-  conclusions  from  its 
perusal ;  while  several  of  its  books  are  assigned  by  emi- 
nent modern  critics  to  other  authors  than  those  to  whom 
they  are  commonly  ascribed,  or  whose  names  they  gen- 
erally bear  ;  and  the  origin  of  other  books  once  supposed 
by  all  and  still  believed  by  some  to  be  the  productions 
of  writers,  whose  names  are  as  familiar  as  household 
words,  has  been  so  obfuscated  by  the  exegetical  disqui- 
sitions of  those  learned  critics,  that,  were  their  author's 
to  return  to  earth  they  could  hardly  expect  to  secure  a 


6i8  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testaiuent 

copyright.  Simple  souls  used  to  turn  to  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  and  draw  instruction  and  consolation  not 
only  from  the  reading  of  its  contents,  b^it  from  the  be- 
lief, that  they  were  perusing'a  genuine  letter  written 
to  the  men  of  his  race  by  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles. But  they  rhust  believe  so  no  longer,  for  "  F.  W. 
Farrar,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  and  chaplain  in  ordinary  to  the 
Queen  "  tells  '  them  in  the  year  of  grace  1882  that  that 
Epistle  was  not  written  b}'  St.  Paul,  nor  even  by  an 
Apostle,  but  by  Apollo ;  the  idea  of  its  Apollonian 
origin  having  been  hatched  in  the  seething  brain  of 
Luther.'  Such  remarks  from  a  ro3'al  chaplain  are  not 
likely  to  shock  the  feelings  of  the  English  Protestant 
public,  for  it  has  been  long  accustomed  to  more  irrev- 
erent criticism  by  high  dignitaries  in  the  Anglican  com- 
munion. Few,  however,  were  prepared  to  hear  that 
the  rationalistic  theories  imported  into  England  from 
Germany  had  crossed  the  borders ;  and  were  enthusias- 
tically reechoed  in  the  Kirk  o'  Scotland.  Yet  such  is 
the  case,  for  the  Aberdeen  pi'ofessor  cited  above,  as  ap- 
pears from  the  preface  to  his  work,  "  on  the  invitation 
of  some  six  hundred  prominent  Free  Church  men  in 
Edinburg  and  Glasgow,"  delivered  in  those  cities  "  dur- 
ing the  first  three  months  of  the  present  year"  (1881) 
"  twelve  lectures  "  on  "  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jew- 
ish Church  ;  "  "  and  the  average  attendance  in  the  course 
in  the  two  cities  was  not  less  than  eighteen  hundred  ;  " 
a  fact  which  shows  that  what  the  lecturer  calls  "  pro- 
gressive Biblical  science,"  or  the  "  newer  criticism  " 
meets  with  considerable  favor  among  a  large  and  influ- 
ential class  of  his  countrymen.  As  a  specimen  of  this 
so  called  "  science  "  and  of  the  consequence  resulting 
from  the  substitution  of  human  for  the  divine  authority 
claimed  by  the  Church  in  reference  to  the  Bible,   we 

■   '    The  Early  Days  oj  Christianity,  pp.  182,  183- 
'  Ibid.  187. 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  619 

select  the  following  from  many  similar  statements  ad- 
vanced by  the  advocate  of  the  "newer  criticism  "  in  his 
series  of  lectures.  "As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Pentateuchal 
history  was  written  in  the  land  of  Canaan  ;  and  if  it  is 
all  by  one  hand,  it  was  not  composed  before  the  period 
of  the  Kings."  '  And  "  The  Pentateuch  then,  was  not 
written  in  the  wilderness,  but  moreover  it  is  not  now  in 
its  narrative  parts  a  single  continuous  w^ork,  but  a  com- 
bination of  several  narratives  originally  independent."  "^ 
Scotch  Calvinism  is  doomed,  for  the  time  is  probably  not 
far  distant,  when  the  disciples  of  John  Knox,  if  they 
have  not  already  done  so,  will  subscribe  to  the  belief 
proclaimed  by  an  Anglican  Bishop  in  1862,  viz:"  that 
the  narrative  of  the  Pentateuch,  whatever  ma}-  be  its 
value,  cannot  be  regarded  as  historically  true." '  Yet 
among  educated  readers  this  is  the  logical  and  inevitable 
result  of  discarding  the  authority  of  the  Church  for 
mere  human  testimony,  as  the  sole  key  to  the  solution 
of  the  many  problems  connected  with  the  written  word 
of  God.  Others,  who  on  human  testimony  alone  still 
persist  in  believing  that  the  Bible  is  not  only  historically 
true  but  divinely  inspired,  do  so  in  defiance  of  the 
plainest  principles  dictated  by  common  sense. 

The  treatment  which  the  Bible  receives  from  that 
large  class  of  German,  English,  and  American  Protes- 
tants, represented  by  the  writers  named  above,  and  in 
fact  from  intelligent  Protestant  readers  generally,  is 
subversive  of  a  principle,  without  which  Christian  civi- 
lization could  not  be  maintained.  For  it  is  only  when 
mob  rule  and  violence  have  usurped  the  place  of  law- 
and  order,  that  the  superior  is  subjected  to  the  judg- 
ment ot  the  inferior,  or  that  the  private  citizen  dares  to 
question  the  authority  of  a   law   pronounced  constitu- 

1  Ibid.  pp.  321,  322.  ^  pp.  324,  325- 

3  Pref.  to  the  Pent,  and  Book  of  Josmi,  by  Rt.  Rev.  John  William  Colenso, 
D.D.,  Bishop  of  Natal,  p.  20. 


620  The  Ca)ion  of  the  Old  Testament 

tional  by  the  public  tribunals.  Unless  in  times  of  social 
disorder  when  legitimate  power  has  been  superseded 
by  lawless  and  irrepressible  force  ;  the  law,  as  set  forth 
and  interpreted  by  the  judge  for  the  time  being,  is 
above  the  person  or  the  case  brought  before  his  tribunal 
whatever  may  be  the  dignity  of  that  person,  or  the  im- 
portance of  that  case.  But  as  if  the  Protestant  system 
was  religious  anarch}-  or  the  creed  of  lunatics,  this  is  all 
reversed  the  moment  an  advocate  of  that  system  attempts 
to  deal  with  the  Bible  according  to  his  own  principles. 
For  the  Bible,  until  he  becomes  an  infidel,  is  for  him  as 
the  word  of  God,  a  divine  code,  whose  meaning,  scope, 
and  limits,  he  has  no  right  to  define.  For  him  to  at- 
tempt that  is  illogical,  revolutionary,  and  impious.  He 
dare  not  so  trifle  with  the  laws  of  the  civil  communitv 
to  which  he  belongs.  And  who  will  say  he  is  at  liberty, 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  law  of  the  Lord. 

We  readily  grant  that  it  is  not  only  lawful  but  lauda- 
ble for  a  Christian  to  examine  the  reasons  why  the  Bible 
is  to  be  received  as  the  word  of  God ;  why,  for  example, 
this  or  that  book  is  considered  canonical  and  that  other 
not,  since  in  this  matter,  as  well  as  all  others  pertaining 
to  his  religious  belief  it  is  not  unquestioning  credulity 
but  intelligent  faith  that  is  expected  of  him.  To  engage 
however  in  such  an  enquiry  with  the  intention  of  argu- 
ing that  the  Bible  is  not  what  it  is  commonly  taken  for; 
or  with  the  expectation  of  proving  that  it  is  destitute  of 
any  of  those  characteristics,  without  which  it  would  be 
nothing  more  than  a  human  production — though  a  task 
which  an  infidel  might  consistently  undertake — is  one 
which  a  Christian  of  whatever  creed  must  decline,  so 
long  as  he  remains  such.  Yet  as  if  the  Bible  were  no 
more  than  it  is  to  a  disciple  of  Voltaire  or  Tom  Paine, 
the  Protestant  arraigns  before  the  bar  of  his  own  reason 
every  book  of  which  it  is  composed  ;  and  presumes  to 
•decide  whether  it  is  canonical  or  not ;  thus  putting  the 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  62 1 

human  above  the  divine,  and  subjecting  what  he  believes 
to  be,  or  at  least  has  some  reason  to  suspect,  may  be,  the 
oracles  of  God,  to  the  capricious  judgment  of  a  mind 
perhaps  warped  by  invincible  prejudices,  at  all  events, 
fallible  b}^  nature  and  limited  in  its  range  of  knowledge. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  his  judgment  is  confirmed 
by  that  of  all  other  Protestants  at  or  since  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  of  the  Jewish  people  both  before  and  since  the 
time  of  Christ  ;  even  were  such  the  case,  a  point,  which 
not  onl}'  can  never  be  proved,  but  is  untrue.  For  the 
opinion  of  all  those  Protestants  and  Jews  as  to  the  Old 
Testament  canon  is  for  the  Protestant  enquirer  nothing 
more  than  human  testimon}-  ;  and  is  to  be  entirely  dis- 
regarded, unless  we  are  prepared  to  say  that  the  word 
of  God  is  to  be  tested  by  the  word  of  man.  It,  therefore, 
follows  that  it  is  irrational  for  the  Protestant  to  believe 
that  the  books  in  his  Bible  are  canonical,  unless  he  be- 
lieves this  because  the  Church  says  so.  And  this  he 
must  do,  otherwise  for  him  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
canonical  Scripture  ;  because  the  word  canonical  implies 
a  characteristic  which  lies  in  the  plain  of  the  superhuman, 
and  is  therefore  beyond  the  range  of  the  most  trust- 
worthy testimony  which  man  can  offer  ;  and  one  of  those 
points  about  which  none  but  a  superhuman  witness,  or 
a  human  witness  divinely  appointed  can  testify.  But 
the  Church  is  the  only  such  witness,  and  therefore  every 
Christian  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic,  before  he  can 
logically  accept  any  book  as  canonical,  must  have  her 
assurance  that  it  is  so. 

Now  there  are  many  considerations,  some  of  which 
will  convince  any  intelligent  and  unprejudiced  person, 
that  this  assurance  may  be  rehed  on  as  trustworthy  ; 
others  that  will  enable  him  to  see  that  it  gives  abso- 
lute certainty.  Thus  the  Scriptures  of  both  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  whatever  the  books  that  compose  them, 
were  delivered  to  the  guardianship  of  the  Church  by  the 


622  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

Apostles.  This  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  as  we  have 
already  seen.  But  has  she  been  faithful  to  her  trust  in 
this  matter  ?  Has  she  preserved  these  Scriptures  sub- 
stantially as  they  were  delivered  to  her  ?  Of  this  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt.  The  copy  she  uses  and 
approves  of  is  called  the  Vulgate.  Besides  this,  there 
are  in  existence,  the  copies  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures possessed  by  Christians  as  well  as  Jews  ;  and  innum- 
erable other  copies  in  various  languages  ;  many  of  these 
copies  being  very  ancient,  and  others  comparatively 
modern.  The  Vatican  library  possesses  a  copy  '  of  a 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Greek,  the 
first  ever  made  into  any  language,  and  antedating  the 
birth  of  Christ  by  nearly  three  hundred  years.  The 
copy  itself  belongs  to  the  middle  if  not  the  beginning  of 
the  fourth  century  within  our  era.  St.  Petersburg  is  en- 
riched with  another  copy  "'  of  that  translation.  It  is 
supposed  to  have  been  written  almost  as  early  as  the 
preceding.  The  British  museum  contains  a  third  copy  ^ 
of  that  translation  as  old  as  the  fourth  or  fifth  century. 
And  the  National  Library  at  Paris  comprises  among  its 
literary  treasures  a  fourth  copy  "  which  is  generally  as- 
signed to  the  fourth  century.  Besides  these  copies  be- 
longing to  the  fourth  or  fifth  century,  there  are  numerous 
others  of  various  translations  proceeding  from  the  earliest 

'   Codex  Vattcanits  in  the  Vatican  Library,  Rome. 

2  Codex  Sinaiticiis  found  by  Tischendorf  in  St.  Catharine's  Monastery,  Mount 
Sinai. 

*  Codex  Alexandrinus  brought  from  Alexandria  in  Egypt  by  Cyril  Lucar, 
who  presented  it  to  Charles  I.  of  England. 

•*  Ephnem  resoiptus.  It  is  a  palimpsest;  and  is  so  called,  because,  as  it  ap- 
pears, a  copy  of  the  Scriptures  having  been  first,  written  on  the  parchment,  and 
the  letters  having  either  faded  or  been  removed,  the  parchment  was  again 
used  for  copying  some  of  St.  Ephrem's  works.  In  the  course  ot  time  the 
double  purpose  which  the  parchment  was  compelled  to  serve  was  discovered, 
and  the  copy  of  St.  Ephrem's  works  having  been  removed  by  a  chemical 
process,  the  original  copy  of  the  Scripture,  which  the  parchment  contained, 
was  partially  restored. 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church:  623 

version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  made  into  the  many 
languages  spoken  by  Christian  nations  and  tribes — the 
Syriac,  Grasco  Veneto,  Memphitic  or  Coptic,  Thebaic 
or  Sahidic,  Bashmuric,  Arabic,  Ethiopic,  Persian,  Geor- 
gian, Slavonic,  Gothic,  Armenian  ;  translations  more  or 
less  complete,  and  written  at  different  dates  between  the 
first  and  ninth  century  ;  for  the  number  includes  the 
Peshito,  a  production  very  probably  of  the  first  century. 
The  works  of  early  Christian  writers  have  also  pre- 
served for  us  innumerable  quotations  from  the  Bible, 
as  it  existed  in  their  time  and  in  their  respective  coun- 
tries. Now  a  comparison  between  the  vulgate  on  the 
one  hand,  and  all  these  translations  and  copies  of  trans- 
lations and  patristic  quotations  on  the  other,  will 
prove  that  no  change  of  any  consequence  has  occurred 
in  the  text,  which  the  Church  has  followed  as  a  stand- 
ard ;  that  it  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  identical 
with  not  only  the  text  preserved  among  the  Jews,  but 
with  that,  in  which  the  contents  of  the  Bible  have  been 
translated  into  the  various  languages  spoken  in  all  those 
countries,  where  the  Christian  religion  was  long  ago 
established,  and  where  it  is  still  professed,  or  has  been 
corrupted  by  triumphant  schism.  The  versions  just 
mentioned,  contain  all  of  them,  so  far  as  known,  the  Old 
as  well  as  the  New  Testament  deutero  books — tht-Pcs- 
hito  '  alone  excepted,  as  it  wants  most  of  the  deutero 

1  Simple  as  the  word  is  generally  Interpreted.  It  is  the  oldest  of  the  Syrian 
versions,  and  comprised  originally  only  the  Old  Testament  proto  books, 
though  the  deutero  books  of  that  part  must  have  been  soon  added  ;  as  they 
are  frequently  cited  by  St.  Ephrem,  a  Syrian  writer  of  the  fourth  century.  At 
first  the  II.  Ep.  of  Peter  II.  and  III.  Eps  of  John,  Ep-  of  Jude  and  the 
Apocalpse  were  not  contained  in  the  Peshito  New  Testament.  For  these 
books  as  they  are  now  found  in  that  version,  seem  to  have  been  added  sub- 
sequently as  if  the  Syrian  Churches  had  not  received  them  at  the  same  time 
with  the  others  ;  or  having  received  them  had  in  accordance  with  the  teaching 
of  Theodore  of  Mopseustia  rejected  them  for  a  time;  but  at  last  when  better 
informed  restored  them  to  the  canon. 


624  TJiC  Cano)i  of  the  Old  Testament 

found  in  the  New  as  well  as  all  the  deutero  belonging 
to  the  Old  Testament,  the  latter  having  been  translated 
from  the  Hebrew  into  Sj'riac  probably  at  a  time,  when 
the  Jews  had  already  reduced  their  canon  to  its  pres- 
ent dimensions.  This  exception,  however,  only 
strengthens  our  argument.  For,  though  differing  from 
the  Church's  standard  copy  of  the  Scriptures  as  to  the 
number  of  Old  Testament  books,  the  Peshito,  as  to  its 
text,  coincides  substantially,  so  far  as  it  goes,  with  the 
text  of  that  standard  ;  thus  proving  as  do  all  the  other 
translations  and  copies,  each  having  those  books  which 
were  originally  wanting  in  it,  that  the  Church  has  all 
along  sedulously  and  successfully  guarded  the  purity 
of  the  sacred  text.  Strange  would  it  not  be,  had  she 
been  less  careful  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  sacred 
volume  itself,  or  allowed  its  limits  to  be  stretched  be- 
yond the  lines  fixed  by  those  inspired  men  who  de~ 
livered  it  to  her  keeping. 

And  let  it  be  further  observed,  that  the  propagation 
of  the  Gospel  everywhere  among  nations  once  heathen 
but  now  Christian,  has  been  the  work  of  the  Church. 
That  whatever  there  is  valuable  in  modern  civilization  is 
fairly  to  be  ascribed  to  her  influence.  That  the  equality 
of  all  men  before  God  was  first  insisted  on  by  her.  That 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  were  first  de- 
clared by  her  to  be  the  right  of  every  human  being. 
That  had  it  not  been  for  her,  slavery  would  still,  be  as  it 
once  was  the  condition  of  a  great  part  of  mankind. 
That  woman  from  being  the  chattel  was  made  by  her 
the  companion  of  man.  That  by  the  Church  was  laid, 
and  is  still  preserved  the  only  sure  foundation,  on  which 
the  integrity  of  the  Christian  family  and  the  sanctity  of 
Christian  marriage  can  be  maintained.  And  that  even 
her  enemies  must  admit,  that  the  cause  of  Christian 
morality  and  of  Christian  charity  has  ever  found  in  her 
its  most  eloquent  advocate,  often  its  sole  successful  pro- 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  625 

moter.  Surely  that  man  must  be  beyond  the  reach  of 
argument,  who  cannot  be  convinced  by  such  facts,  that 
the  testimony  of  the  Church,  declaring  that  any  par- 
ticular book  of  the  Bible  is  canonical,  is  entitled  to  that 
degree  of  respect  which  inspires  entire  confidence. 

But  there  are  olher  facts,  which,  if  examined  in  the 
light,  reflected  on  human  affairs  by  a  behef  in  God's  prov- 
idence, must  lead  not  only  to  a  feeling  of  confidence,  but 
to  a  positive  conviction,  that  when  the  Church  solemnly 
announces  that  certain  books  are  canonical,  her  judg- 
ment is  to  be  regarded  as  infallible.     Thus  of  all  the  civil 
and  religious  institutions,  which  existed  in  the  Apostolic 
age,  or  were  founded  for  centuries  afterwards  through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  Christendom,  she  is  the  only 
one  that  still  survives.      And  during  the  long  period, 
over  which  her  history  extends,  she  has  passed  through 
trials  far  greater  than  those,  which  proved  fatal  to  all  else. 
For  she  has  had  to  contend  with  the  unsparing  ridicule 
of  a  cynical  philosophy,  with  the  blind  fury  of  unpity 
ing  paganism,  and  the  fierce  passions  of  untutored  bar- 
barism.    And,  as  if  she  were  an  enemy  to  the  peace 
and  happiness  of  mankind,  she  has  been  outlawed  in 
the  decrees  of  legislatures  and  the  edicts  of  rulers.     At 
one  time  Emperors  and  Kings  have  endowed  her  with 
princely  possessions,  have  done  public  penance  at  the 
bidding  of  her  Bishops,  and  have  even   condescended 
to  hold  the  stirrup   of  her  chief   Pastor.     i\t   another 
they  have  stripped   her  of  everything,  massacred    her 
ministers ;  and  when  they  did   not   force    on    him    the 
crown  of  martyrdom,  have  dragged  her  supreme  Head 
from  his  See,  thrust  him  into  prison,  or  driven  him  into 
exile;  that  the  shepherd  being  struck  his  flock  might 
be   scattered,  and  the  Church  be  thus  annihilated,  or 
made  subservient  to  the  state.    But  in  every  struggle  of 
the  kind  the  Church  triumphed  in  the  end.  and  resumed 
her  divine  mission,  while  her  persecutors,  one  b3'  one  at 


€26  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

last  passed  to  their  final  account.  Such  is  the  lesson 
which  history  teaches,  and  such  the  problem  presented 
in  the  checkered  career  of  the  Church.  Let  material- 
ists solve  that  curious  problem  if  they  can.  They  have 
tried  to  do  so,  but  failed,  overlooking  or  ignoring  the 
fact  that  the  Church  as  the  Bride  of  Christ,  must  have, 
like  her  Spouse,  a  divine  as  well  as  a  human  side.  In 
the  latter  as  He  was,  she  is  vulnerable,  in  the  former  like 
Him  she  is  impassible.  In  her  what  is  human  is  not  be- 
yond the  reach  of  her  enemies.  But  against  the  divine 
element,  implanted  in  her  nature  by  God  not  even  the 
gates  of  hell  can  prevail.  On  no  hypothesis,  that  ex- 
cludes this  view  of  the  case,  is  it  possible  to  account  for 
the  mysterious  vitalit}^  which  she  has  exhibited  through- 
out her  long  and  eventful  history.  Her  very  existence 
in  view  of  the  trials,  through  which  she  has  passed  alive, 
but  not  always  unscathed,  is,  therefore,  prima  facie  evi- 
dence, that  when  she  declares  in  her  magisterial  capa- 
city, what  is  and  what  is  not  canonical  Scriptui"e,  she 
declares  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 

But  this  is  not  all.  For  among  the  many  motives, 
which  a  reasonable  man  may  have  for  believing,  that  the 
only  canon  which  he  can  safely  adopt,  is  that  which  has 
been  approved  by  the  Church,  there  is  one  which  may 
appear  to  many  minds,  more  cogent  than  any  yet  men- 
tioned. Be  this  as  it  may,  it  probably  had  more  to  do 
in  the  conversion  of  nations,  than  all  others  combined. 
Most,  in  fact,  rdl  of  those  nations,  which,  either  during 
or  since  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  embraced  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  in  doing  so  renounced  the  gross  errors, 
which  then  constituted  the  creed  of  all  but  the  Jews  ; 
and  abandoned  the  inhuman  forms  of  vice,  to  which  the 
infidel  classes  of  mankind  have  been  at  all  times  addicted. 
This  doctrinal  and  moral  change  is  implied  in  the  pro- 
fession of  faith  required  from  all  converts  to  Christianity. 
And  wherever  the  cross  was  planted,  that  change  took 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  627 

place   at   the  suggestion    of   strangers,   who,    however 
irreproachable  in  their  lives,  possessea  neither  worldly 
wealth  nor  worldly  influence  ;  and  in  point  of  human 
learning  were  even  far  inferior  to  many  of  their  disci- 
ples.    Besides  they  had  nothing  to  offer,  as  a  substitute 
for  the  sensual  charms  and    mythological   attractions, 
which  paganism  possessed  for  its  deluded  votaries  ;  ex- 
cept a  religion,  whose  creed  was  mainly  composed  of 
inscrutable  mysteries,  while  its  moral  principles  were  at 
war  with  those  corrupt  tendencies  of  human  nature,  to 
which  the  heathens  yielded' with  the  same  ease,  as  they 
did  to  their  physical  necessities;  and  its  rewards  nothing 
more  than  the  consolation  of  a  good   conscience,   with 
the  hope  of  a  happy  death,  and  a  blissful  eternity,  bless- 
ings then  too  often  unattainable,  unless  through  impris- 
onment, exile,  or  martyrdom.     And  just  as  the  advocates 
of    that   religion   had    engaged    in    a  forlorn  hope,   its 
founder,  for  so  it  was  rumored,  had  died  the  death  of  a 
malefactor ;  in  fact,  they  admitted  this,   for  it    was  too 
well  known  to  be  concealed  ;  although  they  averred  He 
had  again  risen  from  the  dead,  and  even  had  the  audacity 
to  declare  that  this  point  so  inconsistent  with  human  ex- 
perience and  sustained  by  no  testimony  but  their  own, 
should  be  believed  by  their  hearers,  nay,  insisted  that  to 
do  so  was  an  indispensible  element  in  the  creed,  which 
their  converts  were  to  profess  even  unto  death.      For  it 
is  certain  there  is  no  article  of  the  Christian  creed,  on 
which  the  Apostles  laid  so  much  stress,  or  which  they 
so  persistently  urged  on  the  acceptance   of  Jews  and 
Gentiles,   as  tlie  doctrine  of  Our  Lord's  resurrection. 
Yet,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  the  Christian   religion 
with  its  abstruse  mysteries,  its  numerous  facts,  humanly 
speaking  impossible,  and   its  rigid   code  of  morals  was 
embraced  in  the  life  time  of  the  Apostles,  by  multitudes 
of  all  classes  at  Rome,  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Alexandria, 
Corinth,  Ephesus,  in  a  word,  at  all  the  principal  centres 


628  The  Canofi  of  the  Old  Testament 

of  population  within  the  Roman  Empire,  and  even  at 
points  outside  its  limits. 

For  the  success  of  a  rehgious  movement,  which  like 
Mohammedanism  or  Mormonism  appeals  to  the  base 
passions  of  human  nature,  it  is  easy  to  account.  But 
unbelievers  have  never  been  able  on  their  own  princi- 
ples to  offer  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  unparal- 
leled revolution,  which  swept  over  the  world,  perma- 
nently changing  the  belief  and  morals  of  mankind  ;  when 
the  Apostles  went  forth  to  preach  the  Gospel.  It  is 
onh'  in  the  light  of  the  New  Testament  that  we  can 
discover  the  forces,  by  which  that  revolution  was 
pushed  forward  and  has  been  kept  in  motion  ever  since. 
That  sacred  record  reveals  what  appears  to  us,  and 
what  must  appear  to  every  reasonable  man,  the  princi- 
pal motive  power  which  propelled  outward  and  onward 
the  Christian  religion,  until  it  reached  the  hearts  and 
homes  of  mankind  ;  when  it  declares,  that  the  preaching 
of  the  Apostles  was  everywhere,  accompanied  by  signs 
and  wonders,  such  as  the  healing  of  diseases  the  raising 
of  the  dead  to  life,  mii-acles  and  nothing  less. 

Now  the  conversion  of  nations  is  a  work,  which,  we 
know  did  not  cease  with  the  Apostles.  It  was  continued 
long  after  their  time,  and,  in  fact  is  still  carried  on.  Is  it 
not,  therefore,  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  wherever  the 
work  has  been  successful  since;  the  converts,  who  have 
been  gathered  into  the  fold  of  the  Church,  have  been 
convinced,  that  the  Christian  religion  alone  Avas  true 
and  that  it  was  their  duty  to  embrace  it,  by  the  same 
arguments  that  produced  conviction  among  those,  who 
were  the  first  to  take  the  same  step  in  Judea  and  other 
parts  of  the.  Roman  empire,  as  well  as  elsewhere.  Hu- 
man nature  has  been  the  same  since,  that  it  was  then. 
And  if  the  manifestation  of  divine  power  was  indispen- 
sable to  the  success  of  those,  who  were  the  first  to 
preach  the  Gospel ;  there  is  every  reason  to   suppose 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  629 

that  the  labors  of  those  who  undertook  and  accom- 
plished the  same  task  among  the  same  class  of  people 
elsewhere,  required  and  received  a  similar  sanction 
from  God.  If,  therefore,  ecclesiastical,  and  may  we  not 
add,  profane  history,  as  it  certainly  does,  records  num- 
erous instances  of  miraculous  intervention  in  favor  of 
those,  who,  like  the  Apostles,  succeeded  in  propagating 
Christianity  among  infidel  nations ;  it  is  nothing  more 
than  what  we  should  expect.  Why  should  Judea  be  the 
only  theatre  for  the  display  of  God's  power,  when  even 
more  urgent  reasons  existed  for  its  manifestation,  where- 
ever  else  the  same  work  was  to  be  done.  For  among  all 
nations  converted  to  the  Christian  religion,  alter  as  well 
as  during  Apostolic  times,  the  principles  of  that  reli- 
gion must  have  been  considered  far  more  objectionable, 
because  much  more  opposed  to  the  popular  belief,  than 
they  appeared  to  the  people  of  Judea.  Among  the  lat- 
ter, however  they  might  regard  it,  Christianity  was  in 
truth  no  more  than  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  made 
to  their  fathers,  and  the  actual  complement  of  the 
national  creed.  Its  scriptures  included  their  scriptures, 
and  its  God  was  their  God.  Among  the  former  it  was 
a  totally  new  and  generally  unheard-of  system,  which 
aimed  at  the  extirpation  of  all  other  systems,  the  sub- 
version of  the  public  temples,  the  destruction  of  the 
national  idols,  the  burning  of  all  books  objectionable  to 
it,  and  the  renunciation  of  magic,  sorcery,  and  all  other 
occult  and  superstitious  practices,  to  which  the  Gentile 
world  was  addicted. 

Why  then  should  the  Apostles,  of  all  those,  who  dis- 
charged the  same  functions,  be  considered  the  sole  de- 
positories of  miraculous  power ;  especially  as  the  diffi- 
culties to  be  encountered,  the  opposition  to  be  overcome 
and  the  necessity  for  a  class  of  proofs  indicating  the 
sanction,  the  presence  and  the  power  of  God  were,  at 
least,  as  great  in  the  case  of  many  others,  who  accom- 


630  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

plished  similar  results?  Even  if  ecclesiastical  history- 
made  no  reference  to  post-apostolic  miracles,  surely  God 
might  fairl}^  be  supposed  to  have  employed  all  along,  in 
the  conversion  of  pagan  nations,  the  same  means,  by 
which  Jew  and  Gentile  had  been  brought  into  the 
Church  at  first.  We  know  that  miracles  were  then 
among  the  means,  were  indeed  the  principal  means  made 
use  of,  if  not  the  main  argument  appealed  to  for  that  pur- 
pose. But  we  are  not  told,  nor  is  it  anywhere  even  inti- 
mated, that  the  power  to  perform  them  was  afterwards 
to  be  withdrawn  ;  or  that  those,  who  should  be  called 
to  the  same  mission,  were  to  convince  their  hearers  by 
evidence  different  from  that,  without  which,  as  we  all 
admit,  the  task  undertaken  by  the  Apostles  must  have 
failed.  Wherefore;  were  the  history  of  those  mission- 
aries, who,  for  example,  preached  with  success  the  Gos- 
pel in  China  and  Japan,  or  converted  nations  at  some 
time  subsequent  to  the  Apostolic  age,  to  reveal  nothing 
of  a  kind  with  those  stupendous  prodigies  described  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  our  disappointment  would  be 
great  indeed.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  That  history 
proves,  that  the  age  of  miracles  has  not  ceased,  and  that 
God  is  as  ready  as  ever  to  exert  His  omnipotence  in  at- 
testation of  the  truth  when  announced  to  infidel  nations 
by  those,  whom  He  has  called  to  teach  in  His  name. 

Exclude  if  you  will  whatever  seems  legendary  or  fab- 
ricated in  ecclesiastical  historv,  or  in  the  biographies  of 
God's  saints.  Yet  a  large  number  of  portentous  facts 
will  remain,  which  are  so  well  attested,  that  if  we  dis- 
credit them,  we  must,  to  be  consistent,  reject  as  incred- 
ible whatever  is  known  to  us  only  through  human  his- 
tory, or  believe  only  that,  of  which  we  have  personal 
knowledge,  if  even  that  much.  Besides  we  must  be 
prepared  to  explain,  how  it  is  possible,  that  all  those  re- 
spectable, intelligent,  and  disinterested  persons,  who  in 
many  instances  witnessed  with  their  own  eyes  several 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  63 1 

of  those  portentous  facts,  and  so  testified  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  could  liave  been  mistaken  themselves, 
or  disposed  to  impose  on  the  credulity  of  others.  In 
either  case  the  phenomenon  would  be  a  most  abnormal 
one,  in  fact  as  much  a  miracle  as  the  point  in  dispute. 
When,  for  example,  unbelievers  assert  that  the  liquefac- 
tion of  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius  is  no  miracle,  or  that 
the  stupendous  prodigies  which  confirmed  the  mission  of 
St.  Francis  Xavier  in  Japan,  and  were  subsequently  pro- 
nounced miracles  by  a  competent  tribunal,  after  a  most 
searching  juridical  process,  never  occurred  ;  let  those 
incredulous  critics  tell  us,  how  it  is  possible,  that  all 
those — Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics — who  from  time 
to  time,  still  bear  testimony  to  the  changes  that  take 
place  at  Naples  under  the  power  of  prayer  in  the  blood 
of  the  martyred  Bishop  of  Benevento,  can  be  deceived ; 
and  that  those,  who  solemnly  deposed  to  the  signs  and 
wonders,  even  the  raising  of  the  dead  to  life,  which  sig- 
nalized the  labors  of  Xavier  in  Japan,  could  have  been 
mistaken.  To  suspect  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  witness- 
es in  either  case  is  preposterous.  And  if  they  were 
mistaken  or  deceived.  Then  why,  or  how?  The  ques- 
tion has  never  been  answered.  The  deception  of  the 
senses  in  such  circumstances  would  be  itself  a  miracle^ 
something  not  only  unparalleled  in  the  history  and  ex- 
perience of  mankind ;  but  contrary  to  the  laws,  by 
which  God  governs  the  universe ;  belonging  not,  like 
the  stupendous  facts  just  cited,  to  the  physical  but  to 
the  moral  order ;  and  therefore  as  conflicting  with  God's 
providence  far  more  astounding  than  any  event  recorded 
in  sacred  or  ecclesiastical  history.  To  all  but  an  atheist 
or  an  agnostic  a  moral  miracle,  if  we  can  conceive  such 
a  thing,  involves  a  contradiction  ;  a  physical  miracle 
does  not,  and  is  therefore  at  least  conceivable. 

Materialists  in  their  method  of  reasoning,  therefore 
get  over  one  difficulty  b}'^  involving  themselves   in  a 


632  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

greater.  That  method,  to  use  a  homely  expression,  is 
simply  jumping  out  of  the  frying  pan  into  the  fire.  It 
thus  appears  that  the  prodigies  mentioned  in  the  annals 
of  the  Church  and  in  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  are,  many 
of  them  inexplicable,  unless  they  are  recognized  as  mir- 
aculous facts  designed  by  God's  Providence,  to  attest 
His  own  power,  presence  or  sanction.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  God  bears  testimony  not  only  to  the  divine  mission 
of  those  whom  He  calls  to  preach  the  gospel ;  but  to  the 
truth  of  the  doctrines  taught  by  the  Church  which 
they  represent,  while  fulfilling  that  mission.  When 
therefore,  the  Church  in  order  to  prevent  or  check  the 
growth  of  error,  and  defend  the  integrity  of  God's 
written  revelation,  stamps  with  her  sanction  a  canon  of 
Scripture  ;  would  it  not,  we  ask,  be  most  unreasonable 
to  reject  such  canon  on  the  belief  or  suspicion  that  she 
w^as  mistaken  in  including  certain  books  therein,  or  ex- 
cluding others  therefrom? 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  these  reasons,  whether 
they  are  considered  sufficient  to  demonstrate  that  the 
Books  approved  by  the  Church  in  the  Fourth  Session  of 
the  Tridentine  Council  constitute  the  only  complete  and 
authoritative  canon  of  Sacred  Scripture ;  or  are  re- 
jected as  inconclusive  for  that  purpose  ;  it  is  evident  that 
no  Christian,  be  his  creed  what  it  may,  can  on  logical 
grounds  believe  that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  a  writ- 
ten revelation  from  God  to  man,  and  that  the  contents 
of  certain  specified  books  constitute  that  revelation  ; 
unless  first  assured  by  an  infallible  authority  that 
such  is  the  case.  For  books  of  that  character  are  pre- 
sumably above  human  reason,  else  they  would  not 
contain  truths  known  to  God  alone,  such  truths  being 
of  the  very  nature  of  a  divine  revelation.  They  must 
also  be  above  the  reach  of  mere  human  testimon}^  for 
that  is  restricted  to  facts  within  the  natural  order,  where- 
as the  books  in  question   profess  to  be   supernatural  in 


Settled  solely  by  the  CImrch.  633 

their  origin,  aim,  and  contents.  Human  reason  may 
suffice  for  its  own  sphere.  The  evidence  of  distin- 
guished writers,  intelligent  critics,  and  respectable  wit- 
nesses may  be  trustworthy  so  far  as  it  goes.  And  the 
solemn  judgment  of  this  or  that  sect,  or  of  all  the  sects 
combined  may  be  more  or  less  probable.  But  what  does 
it  all  amount  to  ?  Human  testimony,  confessedly  fallible, 
limited  to  what  is  of  the  earth,  earthy,  and  therefore 
utterly  incompetent  to  decide  that  writings,  which  claim 
to  have  God  for  their  author,  are  really  to  be  received 
as  such. 

The  first  converts  to  Christianity  believed  that  there 
was  such  a  revelation,  as  we  speak  of;  and  that  it  was 
contained  in  certain  well-known  books.  Yet  they  did 
not  believe  that  as  a  conclusion  of  human  reason,  or  as 
a  fact  established  by  human  testimony  ;  but  as  a  doc- 
trine taught  them  either  by  God  Himself,  or  His  duly 
accredited  representatives  the  Apostles.  Their  con- 
duct in  the  matter  was  that  of  rational  beings;  for  they 
yielded  assent,  only  when  they  were  presented  with 
proof  lying  in  the  same  plain  with  the  thing  to  be 
proved.  For  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles,  so  far  as 
they  were  teachers,  was  not  human,  but  superhuman, 
even  divine.  That  was  nineteen  centuries  ago,  when 
men  are  supposed  to  have  acted  without  much  delibera- 
tion and  with  less  judgment.  Is  it  not  therefore 
strange  that  in  this  age  of  boasted  enlightenment.  Chris- 
tians are  to  be  found,  who  ignoring  the  principles  of 
sound  reason^  and  disregarding  the  dictates  of  common 
sense,  believe  that  God  has  made  a  revelation,  and  that 
the  Bible  contains  it,  on  evidence  which  is  infinitely 
inferior  to  that  which  secured  the  assent  of  the  first 
Christians.  Yes  on  evidence  of  a  kind,  which  if  applied 
to  the  Iliad,  would  hardly  suffice  to  prove  that  it  is  the 
work  of  Homer,  or  that  it  has  a  historical  basis.  No 
wonder  that  wherever  the  Protestant  Reformation  took 


634  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

root,  there  should  be  found  a  large  and  constantly  in- 
increasing  class  of  "  advanced  thinkers,"  as  they  com- 
placently call  themselves — all  Protestants  by  their  tra- 
ditions, training,  education,  sympathies,  social  relations  ; 
Protestants,  we  say,  in  all  respects  except  their  religious 
belief — who  unable  to  find  such  testimony,  as  will  con- 
vince a  reasonable  man,  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of 
God  ;  and  not  knowing  where  to  look  for  that  testimony, 
have  reached  the  conclusion,  that  the  common  belief 
regarding  that  book  is  a  popular  delusion,  which  must 
sooner  or  later  be  dispelled  under  the  light  of  the  high- 
er criticism,  or  corrected  by  the  diffusion  of  general 
knowledge. 

The  course  of  those  "  thinkers,"  though  it  has  led 
them  to  infidelit}^  is  at  least  logical.  And  this  is  more 
than  can  be  said  of  those,  who  still  cling  to  the  belief, 
that  the  Bible  is  infinitely  superior  to  any  human  pro- 
duction, though  the  testimony,  by  which  this  belief  is 
supported,  is  confessedly  human  ;  or  though  it  be,  as  all 
of  them  not  yet  fit  for  bedlam  must  admit,  a  mere  hallu- 
cination "  like  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 
For  if  God  has  made  a  revelation  to  mankind,  as  Protest- 
ants hold  to  be  the  case  ;  it  necessarily  follows  that  they 
are  bound  to  regulate  their  belief  ;  and  so  far  as  it  refers 
to  morals,  their  conduct  by  it,  else  that  revelation  would 
not  have  been  made.  But  before  they  take  a  single  step 
in  the  regulation  of  their  belief  and  conduct  according 
to  this  standard,  they  must  know  what  the  revelation  is. 
According  to  their  own  principles,  God  requires  them 
to  take  His  revelation  as  a  guide  in  doctrines  and 
morals.  But  He  would  not  be  just,  if  He  left  them 
without  such  means  as  would  enable  them  to  find  with 
absolute  certainty  what  He  has  revealed.  That  means 
cannot  be  human  testimony,  such  testimony  being  as  we 
have  just  seen  wholly  inadmissible  in  the  case.  Testi- 
mony of  the  same  grade  with  that,  on  which  the  primi- 


Settled  solely  by  the  Clinreh.  635. 

tive  Christians  believed,  that  the  writings  delivered  to 
them  by  the  Apostles  contained  God's  revelation  to  the 
world,  is  the  only  kind  of  testimony,  on  which  the  Prot- 
estants can,  consistently  with  common  sense  and  their 
own  eternal  welfare,  accept  the  Bible  as  the  word  not  of 
man  but  of  God. 

To  an  intelligent  Protestant,  therefore,  either  the 
Bible  is  no  more  than  an}-  other  book,  or  its  claims  to  a 
higher  rank  must  be  proved  by  a  witness,  whose  testi- 
mony is  infallible.  But  where  shall  he  find  such  a 
witness  ?  In  human  reason  ?  No.  In  human  testimony  ? 
No.  In  any  or  all  of  the  Sects?  No,  they  all  answer, 
No.  In  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  No, 
though  lunatics  answer,.  Yes.  Nowhere  in  the  wnde 
world  is  such  witness  found,  nowhere  is  such  witness 
claimed  to  be  except  in  the  One,  Holy,  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  She  has  professed  all  along  and  professes  still, 
on  grounds  satisfactory  at  least  to  all  her  children  be- 
cause consonant  with  reason,  to  speak  with  infallible 
certainty  on  the  canon  of  Scripture,  as  well  as  on  all 
other  revealed  doctrines.  And  every  Christian  what- 
ever be  his  creed,  unless  prepared  to  stultify  himself, 
must  either  take  her  at  her  word,  or  deny  that  the  Bible 
is  the  word  of  God.  For  him,  so  long  as  he  remains 
what  he  is,  there  is  logically  no  half  way  house.  If  he 
denies  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  and  starts  from 
this  denial  as  his  tenniiins  a  quo,  his  terminus  adquein  is 
infidelity.  Should  he  be  resolved  come  what-  may,  to 
maintain  that  the  Bible  is  a  divine  revelation;  but  like 
an  honest  man  determined  to  satisfy  himself  that  it  is  so 
without  a  reasonable  or  possible  doubt,  he  must  sooner 
or  later  conclude  that  the  Church  is  infallible;  and  that 
that  is  the  only  true  canon  which  has  received  her 
approval.  For  if  the  Church  be  not  infallible,  no  man 
can  have  a  motive  for  believing  with  absolute  certainty 
that  God  has  made  a  revelation,  and  that  it  is  contained 


636  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament 

in  this,  or  that  other  book,  or  any  particular  collection 
of  books. 


Concluding  Remarks. 

In  bringing  this  volume  to  a  close  the  author  takes 
occasion  to  say,  that  as  the  reader  is  doubtless  aware 
by  this  time,  the  main  object  aimed  at  from  first  to  last 
has  been  to  prove  that  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  that  catalogue  of  books,  of  which,  together  with  those 
of  the  New  Testament,  the  Council  of  Trent  in  its 
Fourth  Session  declared  that  "  God  is  the  Author." 
For  this  purpose  it  has  been  argued  in  the  course  of  the 
work,  that  the  Jewish  High  Priest  under  the  Old  Law 
was  charged  by  God  to  guard  the  sacred  writings ;  and 
to  decide  as  other  writings  appeared  from  time  to  time 
whether  they  were  to  be  added  to  the  collection  already 
made — a  divine  trust  which  must  have  outlived  the 
Jewish  pontificate,  and  according  to  analogy  have  been 
transferred  to  the  High  Priest  in  the  Christian  dispen- 
sation. It  has  also  been  contended  that  all  the  evidence 
connected  with  the  subject  tends  to  demonstrate,  that  at 
the  advent  of  the  Redeemer  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
-nient  w^as  contained,  not  in  the  present  Hebrew  Bible 
but  in  the  Septuagint ;  and  that  it  was  this  latter  copy  of 
the  Old  Testament  which  the  Apostles,  guided  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  left  with  the  Churches  which  they  founded. 
That  the  Apostles  did  so  seems  indisputable  in  view  of 
the  fact,  that  not  only  the  Roman  Church  founded  by 
SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  but  all  those  schismatical  commun- 
ities which  at  first  maintained  communion  with  that 
Church,  but  ceased  to  do  so,  most  of  them  more  than  a 
thousand  years  ago  ;  find  their  canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment solely  in  the  Septuagint  or  in  a  version  of  it. 
Instead  of  in  the  existing  Hebrew  Scriptures.     In  fact, 


Settled  solely  by  the  Church.  637 

East  as  well  as  West  this  is  still,  as  it  was  the  case.every- 
where,  until  Marthi  Luther  and  his  Protestant  disciples 
borrowed  the  Jewish  canon  in  the  sixteenth  century,  a 
time,  when  that  canon  was  no  longer  what  it  had  been 
when  the  Redeemer  lived  among  men,  or  when  the 
Apostles  delivered  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  as  well  as 
of  the  New  Testament  to  the  Christian  Church. 

That  the  object  aimed  at  in  this  volume  has  been  at- 
tained, it  would  be  presumption  in  the  author  to  assert. 
The  point  is  one  which  must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of 
each  reader,  who  after  weighing  all  the  arguments  will 
decide  for  himself.     But  surely  no  Christian,  and  least 
of    all   a  Protestant,  can  regard   with  indifference  the 
question  discussed  in  the  preceding  pages.     The  Bible 
is  justly  regarded  the  Book  <-.f  Books,  the  best  of  all 
books  ;  because  it  alone  has  God  as  its  Author.     It  has 
been  written  for  our  instruction  and  edification  ;  that  by 
reading  and  meditating  on  its  contents  we  may  be  en- 
abled through  the  grace  of  God  to  live   well,  and  die 
well,    and    be  happy  forever.      Whether  therefore   we 
have  the  Bible,  and  have  it  as  it  was  written  by  God,  is 
a  question  that  concerns  us  all,  a  question  which    de- 
mands  immediate    and   profound    attention,  especially 
from  every  one  who  is  not  absolutely  certain  that  he  has 
in  his  Bible  all  those  sacred  books,  which  the  Christian 
Church  received  as  such  from  those  by  whom  she  was 
founded.     For,  until  he  is  convinced  beyond  a  reason- 
able doubt  that  his  Bible  is  complete,  every  Christian 
has  a  right  to  suspect  that  it  does  not  embrace  all  truth 
which  God  requires  him  to  believe ;  or  that  books  con- 
tained in  other  Bibles  but  omitted  in  his  may  explicitly 
set  forth  some  revealed  doctrines,  which  being  but  vag- 
uely, perhaps  not  at  all  referred  to  in  the  books  in  his 
canon,  he  therefore  doubts  if  he  does  not  actually  deny 
and  doubts  or  denies  to  his  own  condemnation. 

The  canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  if  thoroughly  dis- 


638 


The  Cation  of  the  Old  Testament. 


cussed,  implies  the  treatment  of  various  other  subjects 
one  way  or  other  connected  with  it.  Several  of  those 
subjects  have  received  attention  in  the  present  volume; 
but  perhaps  not  so  much  as  their  importance  demanded. 
More  however  could  not  have  been  given  them  consist- 
ently with  what  was  aimed  at — a  book  of  moderate 
dimensions.  Throughout  the  discussion  of  the  principal 
question  considered  in  the  preceding  pages,  the  reader 
will  find  that  the  sentiments  expressed  by  eminent 
writers,  whether  Christian  or  Jewish,  who  reject  the 
Tridentine  canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  have  been  fairly 
stated,  indeed  generally  in  their  own  words  ;  and  that 
the  references  in  each  case  have  bsen  plainly,  it  is  hoped 
correctly  indicated  in  the  foot  notes.  Rarely  has  an 
appeal  been  made  to  the  Christian  Fathers,  or  to  the 
action  taken  by  Ecclesiastical  Councils  in  reference  to 
the  compass  oi  the  Old  Testament,  and  hardly  has  any 
attention  been  devoted  to  objections  derived  from  such 
sources.  Because  to  have  done  so  would  have  required 
at  least  another  volume,  which  may  or  may  not  accord- 
ing to  circumstances  be  written  hereafter,  although 
materials  are  already  at  hand  for  the  purpose. 


APPENDIX. 


As  the  matter  is  one,  on  which  some  readers  might  desire 
information;  it  has  been  decided  to  add  to  this  volume  lists  of 
the  books  found  in  the  oldest  manuscripts  of  the  Greek  Bible, 
a  list  of  books  given  in  the  oldest  Graeco-Latin  manuscript  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  three  other  lists  of  books  contained  in 
Bibles  which  are  ueitlier  Greek  nor  Latin,  and  are  used  by 
schismatics  each  being  written  in  a  different  language.  One 
of  tbese  Bibles  is  a  descendant  of  a  version  made  from  the 
Septuagint  probably  as  early  as  the  fourth  century;  another 
also  a  version  of  the  Septuagint — appears  to  have  circulated  all 
along  among  a  wide-spread  religious  community,  ever  since  it 
seceded  from  the  Church  in  the  fifth  century;  the  third  is 
evidently  a  copy  of  a  version,  in  like  manner  made  from  the 
Septuagint  about  the  ninth  or  tenth  century,  when  the  ances- 
tors of  the  people  who  now  use  it  were  converted  to  the  true 
Faith  by  missionaries  in  communion  with  the  Holy  See.  The 
Greek  manuscripts  referred  to  are  the  Vaticaii,  the  Sinaitic, 
the  Alexandrian,  the  Epehreyni  Rescriptus,  the  Graceo-Latin,  or 
Claromontoyins.  Of  the  three  other  Bibles  just  mentioned,  or^e 
is  the  Bthiopian,  the  second  the  Clialdean,  the  third  theRiissian. 

The  Vatican  Codex,  so  named  because  it  is  preserved  in  tiie 

Vatican  library  at  Rome,  is  supposed  by  tlie  great  majority  of 

the  best  critics  to  belong  to  the  beginning  or  middle  of  the 

fourth    century.     A   distinguished    Protestant  scholar,  "   well 

qualified  by  the  nature  and   range  of  his  studies  to  decide  on 

the  relative  merits  of  manuscripts  declares  that  the    Vatican 

manuscript  "  on  the  Avhole  may  be  pronounced  to  be  the  most 

'  Dr.  Westcott,  the  Bible  in  the  Church,  p.  305. 

639 


640  Appendix. 

correct  copy  of  the  Greek  Bible."  It  has  been  executed  in  ex- 
tremely fine  antelope  skin  in  uncial  letters  so  exquisite,  as  to 
rival  the  most  graceful  productions  of  the  printing  press. 
Each  page  is  divided  into  three  columns  unaccented  and  uu- 
punctuated.  It  has  no  space  between  the  words  unless  occas- 
sionally  wliere  one  narrative  is  succeeded  by  another.  As  at 
first  written,  it  appears  not  to  have  had  at  the  beginning  of  any 
book  a  letter  larger  than  the  rest,  which  were  all  of  uniform 
size  and  style.  But  at  the  beginning  of  the  Gospels,  the  letters 
traced  by  the  first  scribe  have  been  superseded  by  larger  ones, 
the  work  of  a  later  hand,  which  has  also  carefully  restored 
such  letters  as  had  become  faded  or  obscured  by  use  or  age. 

This  precious  relic  of  christian  antiquity  has  been  often  col- 
lated and  published.  Under  Pius  IX.  a  splendid  edition  of  it 
was  prepared  by  Fathers  C.  Vercellone  and  J.  Cozza.  And 
quite  recently  the  latter  Father  stimulated  by  the  encourage- 
ment of  Leo  XIII.  has  succeeded  in  photographing  a  few 
copies  of  it.  Very  little  is  known  of  its  historj^,  though  it 
appears  to  have  formed  part  of  the  Vatican  treasures  since  the 
fifteenth  century;  and  is  supposed  by  some  to  have  been 
brought  there  from  Constantinople  by  Cardinal  Bessarion.  It 
may,  therefore,  be  one  of  the  fifty  superb  copies,  which, 
Eusebius  as  directed  by  Constantine  the  Great,  prepared  for 
the  Churches  of  Constantinople.  At  all  events  it  is  old 
enough  to  be  coeval  with  Constantine,  while  the  magnificent 
style  in  which  it  has  been  executed  is  quite  suggestive  of  im- 
perial patronage.  It  is  very  much  to  be  regretted,  however, 
that  this,  by  far  the  most  valuable  manuscript,  Avhich  we 
possess  of  the  Septuagint,  is  mutilated,  wanting  as  it  does 
some  leaves  at  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end.  The  books 
and  parts  of  books  which  it  still  contains  are  the  following: 

OLD     TESTAMENT. 


Genesis,  (a  fragment). 

Josue. 

III.  Kings. 

Exodus. 

Judges. 

IV.  Kings. 

Leviticus. 

Ruth. 

I.  Paralipomenon. 

Numbers. 

I.  Kings. 

II  Paralipomenon. 

Deuteronomy. 

II.  Kings. 

III.  Esdras.  (apocryphal.) 

Appendix. 


(iA,\ 


OLD 

/.  Ridras. 

II.  Esdras.  (or  Nehe-  i  Tobias 

inias.)  Osee. 

P.salms,  (parts  deficient.)  :  Joel. 


TESTAMENT. 
Judith. 


Proverbs. 
Kcclesiastes. 
Canticle  of  Canticles. 
Job. 

Wisdom. 
Eccksiasticus. 
Esther.,    (with    the   ad- 
ditions.) 


j  Amos. 
Abdias. 
Jonas. 
Micheas. 
Nahum. 
Habacuc. 
Sophonias. 
Aggeus. 


( Continued). 

Zacharias. 

3Ialachias. 

Isaias. 

Jeremias. 

Baruch. 

Lamentations. 

Epistle  of  Jeremias. 
(Baruch  vi.) 

Ezechiel. 

Daniel.      (with   the    ad- 
ditions.) 


Matthew. 

Mark. 

Luke. 

John. 

Acts  of  Apostles. 

Epistle  of  James. 

L  Peter. 

IL  Peter. 


NEW     TESTAMENT. 

/.  John. 
II.  John. 
IIL  John. 
Jude. 

St.  Paul  to  tlie  Romans. 
"      "     '•    "  /.  Corinth. 

"      "     "    '■  Galatians. 


St.  Paul  to  the  Ephesians. 
"       "     "    "  Philippians. 
"      "     "    "  Colossians. 
"      "     "    "  /.  Tliessal 
"      "     "    "  //.  Thessal. 
"     "     "     "     Hebrews. 

(as  far  as  ix.  14, 
where  the  MS.  ends.) 


The  Sinaitic  Codex  was  discovered  by  Tischendorf  in  1814- 
1815,  at  the  monastery  of  St.  Catharine  on  Monnt  Sinai,  lience 
its  name.  It  was  conveyed  to  St.  Petersburg  where  it  still  re- 
mains. In  age  and  excellence  it  ranks  next  to  the  Vatican,, 
being  generally  considered  a  production  of  the  fourth  century,, 
but  much  of  what  it  contained  when  Avritten  has  been  since 
lost.  It  differs  from  the  Vatican  by  having  its  pages  divided 
into  four  instead  of  three  columns.  Yet  like  the  Vatican  it  is 
written  continuously  and  in  uncial  letters  of  uniform  size,  being 
also  unpunctuated  and  unaccented.  Following  are  the  books, 
and  j)arts  of  books  which  it  contains: 


OLD     TESTAMENT. 

/.  Isaias. 
Jeremias. 
Lamentations.,  (as   far   as 


Paralipomenon.   (Frag-      \  Esther,  (with  additions.) 
ments.  Tobias,  (almost  entire.) 

//.  Esdras,  (that  is  /.  Es-    Judith,  (almost  entire.) 
dras,  a  fragment,  and  i  /.  Machabees. 
Nehemias.)  \  II.  Machabees. 


ii.  20.) 
Joel. 


642 


Appendix. 


OLD 

TESTAMENT.     ( Continued). 

Ahdias. 

Aggeus. 

Ecclesiastes. 

Jonas. 

Zacharias. 

Canticle  of  Canticles. 

Nahum. 

Malachias. 

Wisdom. 

Habacuc. 

Psalms.  (151.) 

Ecclesiasticvs. 

Sophonias. 

Proverbs. 

Job. 

NEW    TESTAMENT. 

Matthew. 

Ephesians. 

Epistle  of  James, 

Mark. 

Philippians. 

I.  Peter. 

Luke. 

Colossians. 

IL  Peter. 

John. 

I.   Thessalonians. 

I.  John. 

Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 

U.  Tliessalonians. 

II.  John. 

Jioma7is. 

Hebrews. 

III.  John. 

I.  Corinthians. 

I.  Timothy. 

Apocalypse. 

II.  Corinthians. 

II.  Timothy. 

Epistles  of  Barnaba 

Galatians. 

Philemon. 

Shepherd,  (fragmen 

The  Alexandrine  Codex  is  named  after  Alexandria  the  City 
where  it  was  probably  written.  It  has  been  executed  in 
beautifully  formed  uncial  letters  of  similiar  size  and  style.  But 
certain  divisions  of  the  Gospels  are  marked  at  the  beginning 
with  letters  a  little  larger  than  the  rest.  Its  words  are  without 
any  intervening  space  and  are  unaccentuated  and  unpunctu- 
ated,  with  the  exception  of  a  point  above  the  last  letters  in  the 
last  word  of  a  section.  Each  page  is  divided  into  twocolumns. 
This  valuable  manuscript  has  been  assigned  to  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century,  but  by  only  a  few  critics.  For  by  the  great 
majority  of  the  best  scholars,  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic^ 
it  is  believed  to  have  been  executed  not  before  the  fifth  cen- 
tury. The  various  chasms  which  occur  in  it  show  that  it  too 
has  suffered  considerably  in  the  lapse  of  ages.  Its  history  as 
far  as  known  is  briefly  told.  The  notorious  Cyril  Lucar,  while 
schismatical  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  obtained  possession  of  it, 
and  having  in  spite  of  all  competition  secured  the  schismatical 
patriarchal  See  of  Constantinople  brought  it  there  with  him. 
In  the  execution  of  his  plans  for  introducing  Protestant  prin- 
ciples among  the  Greeks,  he  understood  that  it  was  his  interest 
to  secure  the  good  will  of  the  English  government.  And  as  a 
means  to  that  end,  delivered  the  manuscript  to  Sir  Thomas 
Roe.  then  Ensxlish  Embassador  at  the  Sublime  Porte,  with  the 


Appendix. 


643 


request  that  that  gentleman  slionld  present  it  as  a  gift  to 
Charles  I.  King  of  England.  There  it  was  placed  in  the  Royal 
Library,  but  afterwards  was  deposited  in  the  British  Museum, 
where  it  is  still  preserved,  having  been  often  published.  Fol- 
lowing is  the  account  which  Cyril  himself  has  given  of  the 
manuscript  in  a  Latin  statement  annexed  to  it. 

"  This  book  of  the  Sacred  Scripture  of  the  New  and  Old 
Testament,  as  we  have  it  from  tradition,  was  written  by  the 
hand  of  Thecla  a  noble  Egyptian  lady  about  one  thousand 
three  hundred  years  ago,  a  little  after  the  Council  of  Xice. 
The  name  of  Thecla  has  been  written  in  the  end  of  the  book: 
but  Christianity  having  been  extinguished  in  Egypt  by  the 
Mohammedans,  the  books  of  Christians  were  reduced  to  the 
same  condition,  and  therefore  the  name  of  Thecla  is  extin- 
guished and  lacerated,  but  memory  and  recent  tradition  do 
still  preserve  it. 

Cyeil  Patriakch  of  Constantinople." 
The  Alexandrine  Codex  still  contains  the  following  books: 

OLD     TESTAMENT. 


Genesis. 

Micheas. 

Esdras.     (Including  Ne- 

Exodus 

Nahum. 

hemias). 

Leviticus. 

Habacuc. 

I.  MacJiabees. 

Xmnhers. 

Sophonias. 

II.  Machabees. 

Deuteronomy. 

Aggeus. 

III.  Machabees. 

Josue. 

Zacharias. 

IV.  Machabees. 

Judges. 

Malachias. 

Psalter.     (With   preface 

Ruth. 

Jeremias.          (Including 

of  Athanasius  to  Mar- 

I.  Kings. 

Baruch,  Lamentations 

cellinus,      Hj'mns     of 

II.  Kings. 

and     Epistle — Baruch 

the    New    Testament 

in.  Kings. 

VL) 

aud     Prayer    of    Ma- 

IV.  Kings. 

Daniel.     (With   the   ad- 

nasses). 

I.  Parali2)omenon. 

ditions). 

Job. 

II  Paralipomenon. 

Estber.     (With    the   ad- 

Proverbs. 

Osee. 

ditions). 

Ecclesiastes. 

Joel. 

Tobias. 

Canticle  of  Canticles. 

Amos. 

Judith. 

Wisdom. 

Abdias. 

III.  Esdras.  (apocryphal) 

Ecclesiasticus. 

Jonas. 

644 


Appendix. 


Ep.  I.  Timothy. 
"   II.  Timothy. 
"    Titus. 
"    Philemon. 
"   Ajiocalypse. 

I.  E})  is  tie  of  Clement. 

II.  Epistle   of   Clement. 
(Last    part     defective 
and     followed     by     a 
chasm. ) 

Psalms  of  Solomon  xviii. 


NEW     TESTAMENT. 

Matthew.  Ep.  .lude. 

Mark.  "  of  St.  Paid  to  Romans. 

Luke.  "  /.  Corintliians. 

John.  "  //.  Corinthians. 

Acts  of  Apostles.  "  Galatians. 

Ej).  of  James.  "  Ephesians. 

"    Peter.  "  Philippians. 

"    //.  Peter.  "  Colossians. 

"    Z  JbTira.  "  I.  Thessalonians. 

"    //.  John.  "  //.  Thessalonians. 

"    7/7.  «/o7m.  "  Hebrews. 

Ephremi  Codex  rescriptess,  a  manuscript  preserved  in  the 
National  Library  at  Paris  and  supposed  by  Tischendorf  to  be 
somewhat  older  than  the  Alexandrian,  originally  contained  the 
Sacred  Scripture,  but  was  afterwards  used  for  copying  some 
of  St.  Ephrem's  tracts.  When  this  was  discovered,  efforts  were 
made  to  restore  the  original  writing;  but  these  efforts  were 
only  partially  successful.  However,  it  has  .thus  been  shown 
that,  while  the  manuscript  contained  fragmentary  portions  of 
all  the  l)ooks  of  the  New  Testament,  it  still  I'etained  unmis- 
takable traces  also  of  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles, 
Wisdom,  and  EccJesiasticus  in  the  Old. 

Codex  Claromontanus  now  in  the  National  Library  at  Paris, 
is  named  after  Clermont  in  France  where  it  was  found  by 
Beza.  It  is  a  bilingual  manuscript  of  the  sixth  century,  being 
executed  in  Greek  and  Latin.  It  contains  most  of  St,  Paul's 
Epistles  in  both  languiiges  and  nothing  else.  After  the  Epis- 
tle to  Philemon  it  gives  in  Latin  "  the  lines  of  the  Holy 
Scripture,"  and  as  it  does  so,  names  each  book,  indicating  at 
the  same  time  the  numbei-  of  "  lines  "  it  contains.  These 
numbers  are  here  dispensed  with  as  of  no  practical  importance. 
The  books  named  are  the  following:  ' 

OLD    TESTAMENT. 
Genesis.  Josue.  -j.  Kingdoms. 

Exodus.  Judges.  4.  Kingdoms. 

Leviticus.  Ruth.  Psalms. 

Nitmhers.  1.  Kingdoms.  Proverbs. 

Deuteronomy.  |  2,  Kingdoms.  Ecde-'iiastes. 

1   AVosicoit.  the  Bible  in  the  Clmrch.  p.  ^09. 


Appendix. 
OLD     TESTAMENT.     ( Continued). 


64: 


Canticles. 
Wisdom. 
Wifidom  of  Jesus. 

clcsiasticus). 
12.  Prophets. 


(Ec- 


I  0.9ee. 
Daniel. 

1.  Macliahees. 

2.  Machahees. 
4.  Macliabees. 


Judith. 

Esdras. 

Esther. 

Joh. 

Tobias. 


2.  John. 

3.  i/o/i?i. 
Jude. 

Epistle  of  Barnabas. 
Revelation  of  John. 
Acts  of  Apostles. 
Shepherd. 
Acts  of  Paul. 
Revelation  of  Peter. 


NEW     TESTAMENT. 

4.   Gospels.  1.  Timothy. 

Mattheiv.  2.  Timothy: 

Mark.  Titris. 

Luke.  Colossians. 

Epistles  of  Paul  to  Philemon. 

Romans.  1.  to  Peter.     (Thus). 

1.  Corinthians.  2.  to  Peter.     (Thus). 

2.  Corinthians.  James. 
Galatians.  \.  John. 
Ephesians.                          \ 

It  will  be  noticed  that  sevei'al  proto  books  belonging-  to 
both  the  Old  and  New  Testament  are  omitted  in  the  list, 
while  but  one  Old  Testament  deutero  book,  Barucli  is  wanting. 
But  as  Jeremias  is  one  of  the  omitted  books,  Baruch  usually 
considered  part  of  it  is  of  course  omitted  also.  Why  these 
omissions  ?  perhaps  from  inadvertence;  perhaps  because  the 
scribe  in  the  coi:)y  which  he  followed  did  not  find  that  tlie 
lines  of  the  omitted  books  were  numbered,  that  being  probably 
his  principal  reason  for  giving  the  list. 

The  Ethiopic  Version,^  as  the  one  in  use  among  the  Abyssin- 
ians  is  called,  is  a  translation  of  the  Septuagint  and  Greek  New 
Testament  into  their  principal  dialect  the  Gees  (liberal).  It 
was  made  in  or  soon  after  the  fourth  century.  For  it  was  then 
the  Abyssinians  embraced  the  True  Faith.  And,  although, 
they  have  very  generally  since  become  monophysites,  their  Bible 
appears  to  have  undergone  no  material  change.  As  a  version 
of  the  Septuagint,  it  may  be  presumed  to  contain  all  the  Old 
Testament  deutero  books.  Yet,  it  is  deemed  right  to  produce 
here  as  briefly  as  may  be  a  list  of  contents.  The  follow- 
ing therefore  are  the  books  preserved  in  this  venerable  bible: 

i  Vide  Walton,  Proly.,  xv.  10.  Hody,  Be  Bible  Text,  p.  650.  Comely 
Introd.  in  S.  Script,  vol.  i.  p.  379.     Kitto  Cycl.,  vol  i.  p.  669. 


646 


Appendix. 


OLD  TESTAMENT. 


Genesis. 

Judith. 

Amos. 

Exodus. 

•  Esther. 

Abdias. 

Leviticus. 

Job. 

Jonas. 

Xumbers. 

Psalms. 

Micheas. 

Deuteronomy. 

Proverbs. 

Nahum. 

.Tosue. 

Ecclesiastes. 

Hdbacuc. 

Judges. 

Canticle  of  Canticles. 

Sophonias. 

Ruth. 

Wisdom. 

Aggeus. 

I.  Kings. 

Ecclesiasticus. 

Zacharias. 

II.  Kings. 

Isaias. 

Malachias. 

III.  Kings. 

Jeremias. 

I.  Machabees. 

IV.  Kings. 

Lamentation. 

II.  Machabees. 

I.  Paralipomenon. 

Baruch. 

Enoch.     (No  certain  evi- 

II. Paralipomenon. 

Ezechiel. 

dence   that  this  book 

I.  Esdras. 

Daniel. 

is    considered    canon- 

II. Esdras.    (Nehemias). 

f/see. 

ical  by  the   Abyssin- 

Tobias. 

Joel 

nian  Christians). 

NEW  TESTAMENT. 


Matthew. 
Mark. 
Luke. 
John. 

Acts  of  Apostles. 
Epistles   of    St.    Paul 
Romans. 

I.  Corinthians. 

II.  Corinthians. 
Galatians. 


Ephesians. 

PMlippians. 

Golossians. 

I.  Thessalonians. 

II.  Tliessahnians. 
I.  Timothy. 

IL  Timothy. 

Titus. 

Philemon. 


Hebrews. 
James. 
L  Peter. 
IL  Peter. 

I.  John. 

II.  John. 
Ill  John. 
Jade. 
Apocalypse  of  John. 


Constitutions 
Canons 


)     .  .      fj  .  S  These  the  Abyssinian  Christians  possess,  ) 

^  of    the   ApostCes.  |      ^^^^  whether  as  canonical  is  uncertain.      \ 

The  Nestorian  Bible  is  of  course  as  old  as  Nestorianism  it- 
self, a  schism  which  commenced  in  the  fifth  cent^r3^  That 
that  Bible  contains  all  the  0.  T.  deutero  books  is  conclusively 
proved  by  the  testimony  of  Hebedjesu  or  as  it  is  otherwise 
written  Ebedjesu.  This  writer  who  lived  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  a  Syrian,  and  having  already  embraced  the  monastic 
state  and  distinguished  himself  as  an  earnest  and  learned  de- 
fender of  Nestorianism,  was  appointed  first  patriarch  of  the 


Appendix.  647 

Chaldeans.  As  such  having  renounced  his  errors  he  was  after- 
wards reconciled  to  the  Church.  But  he  had  already  attained 
distinction  by  several  works  written  in  the  interest  of  the  schism 
in  which  he  had  been  educated,  of  one  of  these  Abraham  Echel- 
lensis  a  Syrian  scholar  published  a.  Latin  translation  with  the 
Chaldean  text  at  Rome  in  1653.  It  is  called  by  the  Author  Tlie 
Admirable  Tract  and  proposes  to  enumerate  "the  Divine  Books/' 
of  course  as  they  Avere  contained  in  the  Nestorian  Bible,  as  well 
as  to  treat  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  compositions  written  up  to 
that  time.  Let  us  see  then  what  is  said  in  this  rare  tract  re- 
garding the  contents  of  that  Bible.  *' Trusting,  therefore,  in 
God,  says  the  author,  so  1  begin." 

"The  Law  or  the  Pentateuch  five  books.  Genesis,  Exodus, 
the  Book  of  Priests  (Leviticus),  Numbers,  Deuteronomy, 
Josue  the  son  of  Nun,  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  Kings,  Paralip- 
omenon.  Job,  Psalms,  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  Ecclesiastes,  Can- 
ticle of  Canticles,  great  Wisdom,  Barasiros,  or  Ecdesiasticus, 
Isaias,  Jeremias,  Epistle  of  Baruch,  Ezechiel,  Daniel,  Osee, 
Joel,  Amos,  Abdias,  Jonas,  Micheas,  Nahum,  Habacuc,  Soph- 
onias,  Aggeus,  Zacharias,  Malachias,  Hezra,  Book  of  Tobias 
and  Tobith  just  Israelites,  Judith,  Esther,  Daniel  minoi- 
(deutero),  finally  the  Books  of  the  Machabees."  Next  after 
designating  some  of  the  Books  of  "the  ancient  Hebrews,  "  as 
"  Traditions  of  the  elders,  "  the  writings  of  "  Josephus  the 
scribe"  etc.,  the  author  thus  continues:  "  Having  already  fin- 
ished the  Old  let  us  come  to  the  New%  the  beginning  of  whicli 
is  Matthew,  who  wrote  in  Hebrew  in  Palestine. 

After  him  MarK  spoke  in  Roman  in  the  celebrated  city  of 
Rome. 

Luke  spoke  and  wrote  in  Greek  at  Alexandria. 

John  at  Ephesus  wrote  a  Gospel  in  Greek. 

Luke  also  wrote  to  Theophilus  the  Acts  of  Apostles. 

Epistles  were  signed  in  every  character  and  language  by  the 
Apostles,  namely,  James,  Peter,  John,  and  Jude,  and  they 
are  therefore  called  Catholic. 

Fourteen  Epistles  of  Apostle  Paul  the  great.  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  which  was  written  from  the  Citv  of  Corinth. 


648  Appendix. 

The  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  written  at  Ephesus, 
and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Timothy. 

But  the  second  to  the  Corinthians  was  written  at  Philippi, 
which  is  in  great  Macedonia,  and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Titus. 

And  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  Paul  himself  wrote  from 
the  city  of  Eome,  and  sent  it  by  the  hands  of  Titus,  an  elect 
and  apji roved  vessel. 

But  the  Epistle  of  the  Ephesians  was  written  from  the  city 
of  Eome,  and  sent  by  Paul  himself  through  the  hands  of 
Tychicus. 

That  to  the  Philippians  was  also  written  at  Rome,  and  sent 
by  the  hands  of  Apaphroditus  the  beloved  brother. 

And  that  which  is  addressed  to  the  Colossians,  was  also 
written  at  Rome,  and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Tychicus  the  disci- 
ple of  truth. 

The  first  to  the  Thessalonians  was  written  at  Athens,  and 
sent  by  the  hands  of  Timothy.  But  the  second  to  the  Thess- 
alonians was  written  at  Laodicea  of  Pisidia,  and  sent  by  the 
hands  of  Luke. 

But  the  first  Epistle  of  Timothy  (thus)  was  written  from 
Laodicea  a  city  of  Pisidia,  and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Luke. 

And  the  second  Epistle  of  Timothy  (thus)  was  written  from 
the  city  of  Rome,  and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Luke,  Physician 
and  Evangelist. 

And  the  Epistle  to  Titus  was  written  at  Nicopolis,  and  sent 
and  delivered  by  the  hands  of  Apaphroditus. 

But  Philemon's  (thus)  was  written  from  the  city  of  Rome, 
and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Onesimus  the  slave  of  that  Philemon. 

But  the  Epistle  of  the  Hebrews  (thus)  was  written  in  Italy, 
and  sent  by  the  hands  of  Timothy  his  spiritual  son." 

Then  follows  an  account  of  several  other  writers,  not  only 
Nestorians,  but  Monophysites,  Monthhelites  and  other  secta- 
rists,  as  well  as  of  their  works. 

In  a  note  on  this  part  of  "The  Admirable  Tract"  Echellen- 
sis  the  Translator  observes  '  that  among  the  Orientals,  copies 
are  rare  which  contain  all  the  sacred  books,  because  one  person 

J  p.  130. 


Appendix. 


649 


writes  out  or  directs  to  be  written  out  this  part,  another,  that 
other  part,  as  guided  by  his  studies,  disposition,  opportunity, 
leisure,  and  resources.  Consequently  from  the  various  copies, 
various  catalogues  are  not  to  be  composed,  whether  as  regards 
the  numbers  of  the  books  or  the. order  in  which  they  are 
arranged. 

Tlie  Russian  Bible.  Several  editions  of  this  volume  have 
appeared  from  time  to  time.  Among  the  latest  is  that  of 
1883.  As  already  stated,  '  it  was  published  at  St.  Petersburg, 
with  the  sanction  of  "The  Holy  Orthodox  Synod,"  a  body 
which  regulates  the  doctrines,  discipline,  and  government  of 
the  Russian  Church.  This  Russian  Bible  includes  the  follow- 
ing books: 

OLD     TESTAMENT. 


Gtnesis. 

Exodus. 

Leviticus. 

Numbers. 

Deuteronomy. 

Book  of  Joshua  Xove. 

Book  of  Judges. 

Book  of  Ruth. 

I.  Book  of  Kings. 

II.  Book  of  Kings. 

III.  Book  of  Kings. 

IV.  Book  of  Kings. 

I.  Book  of  Paralipomenon. 

II.  Book  of  Paralipomenon. 

I.  Book  of   Esdras  (T.  Esdras  of  Vul- 
gate"). 

Book  of  Neltemias. 

II.  Book   of  Esdras  {111.  Apociyphal 
Esdras  in  Vulgate). 

Book  of  Tobias. 

Book  of  Judith. 

Book  of  Esther  (with  the  additions;. 

Book  of  Job. 

Psalter. 


Book  of  Parables  of  Solomon. 

Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  or  the  Preacher. 

Book  of  Canticle  of   Canticles   of  Saln- 

mon. 
Book  of  Wisdom  of  Solomon. 
Book  of  Wisdom  of  Jesus.,  Sonof  Sirach. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Isaias. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Jeremias. 
Book  of  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremias. 
Epistle  of  Jeremias  (Baruch  VI.). 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Baruch. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Ezechiel. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Daniel    (witli    the 

additions). 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Osee. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Joel. 
Book  of  the  Propliet  Amos. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Ahdias. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Jonas. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Micheas. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Nahum. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Habacur. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Sophonias. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Aggetis. 


'■  p.  236. 


650  Appendix. 

OLD     TESTAMENT.     ( ContiJiued). 


Book  of  the  Prophet  Zacharias. 
Book  of  the  Prophet  Malachias. 

I.  Book  of  Machahees. 

II.  Book  of  Machahees. 


III.  Book  of  Machahees. 

III.  Book  of  Esdras  (IV.    Apocryphal 

Esdras  iu  Yulgate). 


BOOKS   OF  THE   NEW   TESTAMENT. 


Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew. 
Gospel  to  according  St.  Mark. 


Gospel  according  to  St.  Luke. 
Gospel  according  to  St.  John. 


ACTS   OF  THE    HOLY   APOSTLES. 


Epistle  of  James. 

I.  Epistle  of  Peter. 

II.  Epistle  of  Peter. 

I.  Epistle  of  John. 

II.  Epistle  of  John. 

III.  Epistle  of  John. 
Epistle  of  Jude. 
Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

I.  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 

II.  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 


Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians. 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 

I.  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians. 

II.  Epistle  to  the  Tihessalonians. 

I.  Epistle  to  Timothy. 

II.  Epistle  to  Timothy. 
Epistle  to  Titus. 
Epistle  to  Philemon. 
Epistle  to  Rehrews. 
Apocalypse  of  John  the  Theologian. 


This  catalogue  is  a  copy  of  the  Index^  which,  at  the  end  of 
the  Russian  Bible  exhibits  the  contents  of  that  volume.  The 
inspired  writers  of  the  New  Testament  are  mentioned  in  this 
Index  without  the  prefix  Saint,  as  is  generally  the  case  in  the 
Index  of  the  Vulgate.  But,  as  is  also  the  case  in  the  Vulgate 
New  Testament,  that  word  is  prefixed  in  the  Eussian  New 
Testament  to  the  name  of  each  writer  at  the  beginning  of  his 
Book.  In  the  Eussian  Bible,  as  in  the  copies  of  the  LXX., 
II.  Paralipomenon  is  immediately  followed  by  the  apocryphal 
prayer  of  Manasses,  and  Psalm  150  by  the  apocryphal  psalm  of 
David  when  he  slew  Goliath. 

It  would  be  easy  to  exhibit  many  more  catalogues  from  other 
manuscripts  and  printed  bibles  in  various  languages.  But 
like  these  given  in  this  Appendix;  those  catalogues,  while 
differing  somewhat  in  the  order  assigned  the  sacred  books,  (a 
point  affecting  in  no  way  their  number),  show  all  of  them  that 


Appendix.  ^5  ^ 

from  the  oldest  in  the  fourth  to  the  most  modern  in  the  nine- 
teenth century;  the  limits  of  the  Old  Testament  far  exceeded 
those  to  which  it  was  reduced  by  the  Protestant  reformers, 
who,  in  applying  their  pruning  hook  to  the  Bible,  lopped  off 
many  a  fair  branch,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  most  advanced 
scholars  among  their  modern  followers  confess,  deserved  to  be 
preserved  better  than  some  that  they  spared.  What  wonder, 
then,  that,  while  the  Orientals  by  conciliar  action  proclaimed 
the  Old  Testament  deutero  books  to  be  part  of  the  divine 
canon,  they  unanimously  and  scornfully  rejected  the  counter- 
feit canon  of  the  Eeformers,  which  Cyril  Lucar,  prompted 
by  his  Western  patrons  attempted  to  introduce  in  the  East  ? 


INDEX. 


A. 

Aaron,  101,  108,  180,  362. 

Abarbanel,  188. 

Abbot,  George,  206. 

Abigail,  181. 

Abulbarcatus,  250. 

Abyssinians,  196,  250,  251,  252. 

Adam,  180,  182. 

Adams,  Melchior,  452. 

Addis,  Rev.  William   E.  and  Thomas 

Arnold,  57. 
Admirable  Tract,  250. 
Adrian  II.  Pope,  219. 
Agabus,  185. 
Aggeiis,  22. 
Alabarch,  75. 
A  Lapide.  48,  57,  180. 
Alexander  the  Great,  36,  49,  98,  169. 
Albigensians,  271,  273,  491. 
Allen.  Cardinal,  380. 
Alogians,  268. 
Aman,  63,  177,  178. 
American     counterfeits     of    Catholic 

Bibles,  428-433. 
Ananelus,  117. 
Ananns,  154. 
Anastasins,  schism.  Bishop  of  Tliessa- 

lonica,  208. 
Anastasins,  schism.  Metropolitan,  224. 
Ancient,  347. 
Annas,  117. 
Andrea,  Jacob.  203. 
Anglican  Articles  of  Religion^  546. 


Anglicans,  205. 

Anne  de  Montmorency,  447. 

Anglo  Saxon  Pontifical,  357. 

Anselm,  486,  487. 

Anthony  of  Athens,  213. 

Anthony  St.  the  Great,  217. 

Antiochus,  Epiphanes,  55,  100. 

Apelles,  267. 

Apocryphal,  8. 

Apocryphal  war,  509. 

Apostolical,  126. 

Aquila,  134,  142. 

Arians,  270. 

Aristeas,  65,  96-100. 

Aristobulus,  96,  97,  98. 

Ark,  112,  113. 

Arnagrimus,  538. 

Armenians,  196,  255. 

Artaxerxes,   166,  168,   169,    171.    172, 

180-186,  189,  194. 
Arundel,  Thomas,  494. 
Assemani,  Joseph  Simon,  250,  251. 
Athanasius,  144. 
Audin,  515. 

Augustine,  St.  199,  265,  269,  610. 
Azoff,  209. 

B. 

Bacon,  Francis,  460. 
Bacon,  Roger,  487. 
Bale,  466,  468,  487. 
Balsamon,  359. 
Barclay,  355,  564. 
.  Barhebraeus,  250,  251. 


654 


Index. 


Barlaam,  224. 

Barnabas,  349. 

Bartholomew,  213. 

Baruch,   52,  126,  144,   150,   151,   213, 

216,  229. 
Basil,  St.  29. 
Basil,  271. 
Basilides,  266. 
Basilidians,  268. 
Bath  Kol,  186-188. 
Baur,  587. 
Baxter,  561,  615. 
Bechai,  188. 
Beekmanites,  522,  523. 
Belgic  Confession  of  Faith,  553. 
Benassal,  250. 

Berchoire's  Repertorium,  529. 
Bergier,  265. 
Bertholdt,  47,  586. 
Bertrand  du  Guesclin,  447. 
Boza,  383. 

Bible,  meaning  of,  1,  2. 
Bible,  Anglo-Catholic  or  Douay,  381, 

412. 
Bible,  Auglo-Protestant.  Tyndale's,  303. 
Bible,   Anglo-Protestant,    Coverdale's, 

305. 
Bible,     Anglo-Protestant,     Matthew's 

305. 
Bible,    Anglo-Protestant,     Tavemer's, 

306. 
Bible,     Anglo-Protestant,     Cranmer's, 

306. 
Bible,  Anglo-Protestant,  Bishop's,  307. 
Bible,  Anglo-Protestant,  King  James,' 

308-379.      . 
Bible  Societies,  499-513. 
Bibles,  Catholic  between  invention  of 

printing  and  birth  of  Luther.  456. 

Bibles  Catholic,  German,  438. 

"  "       French,  439. 

"  "        Italian,  439. 

"  "       Spanish,  440. 


Bibles  Catholic,  Portuguese,  440. 

"  "       Flemish,  440. 

"  "        Polish,  441. 

"  "       Bohemian,  441. 

"  "       Slavonic,  441. 

"  "        Hungarian,  442. 

"  "       Syriac,  442. 

"  "       Arabic,  442. 

"  "       Mexican,  442. 

"  "       American  Indian,    442. 

Bedell,  540. 
Bishop  of  Metz, 
Blackmore,  230. 
Blake,  411. 
Bhss,  467. 
Blunt,  471. 
Bogomilists,  271. 
Bogoris,  218. 
Bolten,  289. 

Bonn  Conferences,  244-249. 
Book  of  Mormon,  579. 
Books,  expense  of,  449. 
Boys,  John,  383. 
Breckenridge  and  Hughes,  420. 
Breckenridge,  John,  421. 
Brentius,  518. 
Brethevold,  477. 
Bretschneider,  502. 
Brigitte,  Queen,  538. 
Bristow,  380. 
Brentius,  518. 
Brownlee,  421. 
Broughton,  309. 
Bucer,  573. 
Bulgarians,  218. 
Bull,  George,  460. 
Burnet,  460,  561. 

C. 

Caiphas.  118,  185. 
Calmet,  48,  100,  121. 
Calvin,  John,  289. 
Calvinists,  205. 


Index. 


655 


Cauon  defined,  2. 
Canon,  the  Catholic,  4. 
"       the  Jewish,  14-70. 
"       the  Protestant,  547-559. 

the  Hellonistic,  50,  70,  72,  159. 
"       or  Palestinian,  70,  81,  159. 
Canonical  and  canonized,  10. 
Canons  of  the  Apostles,  359. 
Canstein,  509. 
Canticles,  9,  58. 
Capito,  518. 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Vatican  Codex, 

640. 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Sinaiiic  Codex, 

G4]. 
Catalogue  of   Books     in  Alexandrine 

Codex,  642. 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Codex  Rescrip- 

lus  Ephremi,  644. 
Catalogue  of  Books   in  Ethiopic  Ver- 
sion, 645. 
C.aalogue     of      Books    in  Nestorian 

Bible,  646. 
Catalogue  of  Books  in  Russian  Bible, 

649. 
Cataphrj'gians,  268. 
Cathai,  271. 

Catholic  Dictionary,  58,  71,  237. 
Cerdo,  267. 
Cerinthus,  266. 
Cerularius,  220. 
Challoner,  Bishop,  402. 
Charlemagne,  446. 
Chamber's  Book  of  Days,  276. 
Chazari,  218. 
Christians  judaizing,  155. 
Chrysostom,  St.  John,  27. 
Chemnitz,  288,  573. 
Clarke,  Adam,  73,  185,  344. 
Classes  of  Books  by  Christians,  5-14. 
Classes  of  Books  by  Jews,  17-21. 
Claudius,  185. 
Clement  of  Rome,  157,  607. 


Clement  of  Alexandria,  24,  607. 

Cleopatra,  174,  175. 

Cludius,  587. 

Cocas,  Joasaph,  222. 

Codex  Paulinus,  541. 

Cohen,  360,  361. 

Colenso,  587. 

Comestor's  Scholastic  History,  529. 

Congregation  of  the  Index,  514. 

Contari,  Cyril,  208,  210. 

Convent  of  St.  Edmondsburg,  480. 

Convocation  of  Canterbury,  242,  321. 

Con  well.  Bishop,  415. 

Copts,  196,  250. 

Comely,  53,  83,  159,  171,  236,  237. 

Cossacks,  209. 

Council,  V.  Ecumenical,  69. 

"       Schismatical  at  Constantinople, 
212. 
Council,    Schismatical    at    Jerusalem, 

213,  359. 
Council  of  Laodicea,  229. 

"       of  Trent,  4,  80,  158,  202,  597. 

"       Neo  C;\3sarea,  359. 

"       in  Trullo,  202,  359. 

"       of  Kice,  359. 

"       of  Florence,  202,  221. 

"       Toulouse,  492. 

"       of  Tai-ragona,  493. 

"       I.  Provincial  of  Baltimore,  437. 

"       II.  Plenary  of  Baltimore.  437, 
533. 
Coverdale,  305,  378,  385,  389. 
Coyne,  401. 
Cozri,  Book  of,  188. 
Cranmer,  470,  475. 
Credner,  587. 
Crete,  205. 
Critopulus  Metrophanes,  206  210,211, 

360. 
Crolly,  Archbishop,  41. 
Cromwell,  313. 
Crucius,  203.  204. 


656 


Index. 


Curoe,  411. 

Cyclopedia,  Kitto's,  78. 
Cyprian  St.  Bishop  of  Carthage,  608. 
Cyril,    schism.  Patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, 208. 
Cyril  and  Methodius,  SS.  213,  539. 
Cyril,  St.  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  608. 
Cyrus,  King  of  Persia,  21,  36. 

o. 

Dahl,  587. 

Damascus,  191. 

Danes,  -±83. 

Daniel  the  Prophet,  29,  36. 

Daniel,  Anglican  Archbishop  of  Tuam, 
540. 

Daniel,  Russian  Bishop,  224. 

Danko,  56,  70,  171,  191. 

Darius  Codomanus,  33. 

Darius  Hystaspes,  33. 

D'Aubigne,  452-461. 

David,  155,  187. 

David  le  Leu  de  Wilhelm,  506. 

Davidson,  60,  61,  73,  74,  77,  255,  276, 
277,  310,  458,  558,  592. 

Debora,  181. 

Declaration  of  Catholic  Principles, 
530. 

Demetrius  Phalereus,  97-99. 

De  Nointel,  216. 

De  Wette,  47,  586. 

Denvir,  Bishop,  411. 

Diana  of  the  Ephesians,  326. 

Diakonos,  346. 

Diesterick,  587. 

Dionysius,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, 213,  222. 

Dixon's  Introduction,  213. 

Dollinger,  244,  515. 

Dolscius,  202. 

Domitian,  155. 

Donatists,  270. 

Dositheus,  Jewish  Priest,  174,  175. 


Dositheus,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Jeru- 
salem, 212,  214,  215. 
Douay  Version  369. 
Doyle,  Bishop,  421. 
Dragon,  History  of,  215. 
Drusius,  460. 
Dublin  Review,  191,  504. 
Dubois,  Bishop,  416. 
Dulia,  314. 
Dumoulin,  301. 
Duncan  Dunbar,  421. 
Dunce,  466. 

Dutch  Confession  of  Faith,  554. 
Duvoisin,  186. 

E.      ■ 

Ebed  Jesu,  250. 

Ebion,  266. 

Ebionites,  156,  258. 

Eccleston,  Archbishop,  415,  424. 

Ecclesiastes,  58,  69,  144,  156. 

Ecclesiastical,  10. 

Ecclesiasticus,  58,  66,  68,  82,  84,   124, 

150,   151,  169,  213.  215,   216,  259. 
Echellensis,  Abraham,  250. 
Edward  VI.  313. 
Eichorn,  286. 
Elcesaeus,  266. 
Eleazar,  72,  100.  102,  118. 
Ehhr  and  Elchrs,  123,  147. 
Elizabeth,  wife  of  Zachary,  183,  184. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  320. 
Eraser,  291,  292. 
Ephrem,  St.  150,  251. 
Epiphanius,    St.    127,    136,    144,    265, 

269. 
Episcopos,  345,  346. 
Esdras.  the  Scribe,  46,  50,  51,  54-57, 

59,    65,    67,    70,    87-89,    109-111, 

140,  144,  146,  161. 
Esdras  III.,  Apocryphal,  76,  151,  171. 
Esdras,  Pseudo  IV.  23-29,  33,  48,  49, 

63,  66,  151,  270,  281. 


Index. 


657 


Esscnes,  123,  347. 

Esther,   14,  46-52,  54,  58-60,  63,  18, 

125,  143,  144,  146,  148-150,  172- 

176. 
Eiigenius  IV.  Pope,  221. 
Eusebius,  26,  98,  265,  269. 
Kutychians,  270. 
Ezechiel,  9,  69,  144,  590. 

F. 

Fagius,  Paul,  383. 
Feast  of  Tabernacles,  65. 
Feodore  1.  of  Russia,  225,  226. 
Ferrer  Boniface,  537. 
Frederic  Barbarossa,  447. 
Fitzpatrick,  Bishop,  424. 
Fit7-  Ralph,  Bishop,  540. 
Formusus,  Bishop  of  Porto,  218. 
Forshall  and  Madden,  281,  282. 
Fox,  John,  471,  475. 
Franzehn,  53,  71,  171. 
Fraser,  John,  582. 
Frassen,  56,  70. 
Freeman,  Charles  P.  520. 
Friar  Bartholy,  518. 

o. 

Gallic  Confession  of  Faith,  553. 

Gamaliel,  120. 

Garizira,  temple  of,  75,  101,  106. 

Gaussen,  573. 

Gelaktion,  225. 

Gemara,  32. 

Gemara,  Jerusalem,  132. 

Genebrard,  52,  70. 

Gennadius,  Russian  Bishop,  224. 

Genoa,  206. 

Germanus,  Russian  ecclesiastic,  224. 

Gildas  the  Wise,  357. 

Gibson,  Dr.  407. 

Glassius,  Solomon,  460. 

Gnostics,  268. 

Godounov,  Boris,  225,  226. 


Godfrey,  Abbot  of  Mahnesburg,  479. 
GorpiaMis,  127. 
Grabe,  270,  550. 
Greeks,  196,  199,  203,  205,  206. 
Greek  Synod,  204. 
Greek  Ciiurch,  204. 
Gregory  Vll.  St.  Pope,  220. 
Gregory,    schism.    Patriarcli    of    Con- 
stantinople. 222. 
Gregory,  Abyssinian  .Abbot    2.V2. 
Gregory,  Martin.  :i80. 

Gregory  Xlll.  Pope,  436. 

Gregory  XVI.  Pope. 

Griesbach,  335. 

Grosseteste,  486. 

Grotius,  289,  383,  460. 

Guericke,  587. 

Gunaika,  329. 

H. 

Iladrian,  37,  135. 

Hagar,  187. 

Hagiographa,  18,  69. 

Hallam,  279,  391,  447,  451,  492,  569 

Haueberg,  171. 

Havercamp,  170. 

Haydock,  Rev.  George,  408. 

Heard,  217,  220,  221. 

Hebrew  Bible,  134. 

Hebrew  letters,  67. 

Hebrew  22  Books,  15. 

Hebrew  names,  337,  342. 

Hedwige,  St.  538. 

Heinsius,  Daniel  and  Nicholas,  460. 

Helcias,  91. 

Heli,  39. 

Hellenistic  Jews,  51,  84,  105,  109,  122, 
144,  148,  196,  198. 

Helvetic  Confession  of  Faith,  552, 

Henry  VIII.  313,  465,  470. 

Herbaud,  447. 

Hereford,  281. 

Hermas,  Book  of,  594. 


6s8 


Index. 


llcrod.  117,  118,  123,  183,  186. 

Mtreus,  358,  361,  363. 

Higli     Priest,    89-92,    94-96,    09-103, 

105,   108,  109,  112,   115-117,   121, 

122,  130,   143,  148,  160,   163,  175, 

182,  183,  187,  191,  193. 
Hilary,  St.  126,  144. 
HiUel,  5],  69,  123. 
Hody,  Humphrey,  100,  132,   170,  235, 

251,  255,  460. 
Holda,  92. 

Holy  Ghost,  187,  189,  196. 
Home,    Thomas    Hartwell,    384,    388, 

471,  474,  487,  492. 
Horrabin,  408. 
Horrenm  Mysteriorum,  251. 
Huet,  55,  70,  82,  83. 
Hughes,  Bishop,  423,  424. 
Hugo  a  Sancto  Caro,  487. 
Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  451. 
Husenbeth,  Dr.  408. 
Huss,  John,  538. 
Huther,  587. 
JlyperduUa,  314. 

I. 

Ignatius,  St.  607. 

Innocent  III.  Pope,  488-491. 

Irenasus,  St.  265,  269,  601. 

Ishmael,  High  Priest,  118. 

Isiaslif,  220. 

Isidore,  St.  of  Seville,  28,  127. 

Isidore,  Metropolitan  of  Moscow,  223. 

Isidore,  St.  of  Pelusium,  612. 

Ivan  HI.  224. 

Ivan  IV.  the  Terrible.  224,  225. 

«T. 

Jacobites,  196,  250. 
John,  82. 

James,   St.  the   Less,   121,    153,    155, 
190. 


James  a  Voragine,  537. 

Jamnia,  68. 

Januarius,  St.  631. 

Jean  de  Vignes,  537. 

Jeddoa,  Jadus  or  Jaddua,  35,  48,  49. 

Jeremiah  I.  schism.  Patriarch  of  Con- 

stantiuople,  222. 
Jeremiah  II.  schism.  Patriarch  of  Con. 

stantinople,  222,  225,  226. 
Jeremias  the  Prophet,  29,  87,  89. 
Jeremias,  Anglican  Bishop,  238. 
Jerome,   St.  9,    15,   27,    98,    127,    142, 

145,  173,  276. 
Jerome  schism.  Bishop  of  Chalcedon, 

213. 
Jesuits,  207. 
Jethro,  38. 

Jerusalem,  Temple  of,  83,  103,  104. 
Joachim,  errorist,  273. 
Joachim  schism.  Bishop  of  Rhodes,  213. 
Joadda,  48. 
Joasaph  II.  schism.  Patriarch  of  C!on- 

stantiuople,  222. 
Job,  Book  of,  69. 
John  Hyrcanus,  57,  119,  183. 
John  the  Baptist,  185 
John  Evangelist,  185. 
John,  King  of  Bohemia,  447. 
John  le  Clerc,  460. 
John  Gottlob  Carpzov,  460. 
John  Henry  Pareau,  460. 
John  David  Michaelis,  460. 
John  de  T  re  visa,  471. 
John,  Bishop  of  Bath,  478. 
John  of  Salisbury,  486,  487. 
Jonathan,  48,  175. 
Jones,  Jeremiah,  560. 
Josaphat,  94. 

Joseph  Ben  Gorion,  100,  172. 
Joseph,  Higii  Priest,  118. 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  120. 
Joseph,   Russian  Bishop  of  Kolomna, 

225. 


Index. 


659 


Josephus,  Historian,  41,  47,  52,  63,  65, 
66,  13,  76,  83,  95,  96,  104,  106, 
107,  116-118,  Vl\.  149.  165,  167, 
169-172,  176,  180-186,  188-193, 
338. 

Josias,  92,  93. 

Jost,  105. 

Josue,  181. 

Josue  Samaritan  Book  of,  101. 

JozJir.  Jewish  Priest,  121. 

Juda  the  Levite,  188. 

Judas  the  Essene,  57,  87-89,  183. 

Judas  Machabeus,  55-57,  63. 

Judith,  9,  52,  151,  169.  213,  215,  216, 
259. 

Justin  Martyr,  St.  125,  130.  132,  154, 
596-607. 

Justinian,  138. 

K. 


Kay,  David,  F.  R.  S.  253. 

Keurick,   Archbishop,  403,  415.  423 

425. 
Kern,  587. 

Kiew,  Metropolitan  See  of,  223. 
King  James  I.  206,  312,  324. 
Kistemacher,  Binterim,  503. 
Konissky,  George,  230. 

L.. 

Langfranc,  486,  487. 

Lange,  587, 

Latria,  314. 

Langton,  486,  487. 

Layton,  466. 

Le  Long,  536. 

Leo  Xin.  Pope,  503. 

Leonard,  Archbishop,  414. 

Leonidas,   Archbishop  of  Novogorod, 

224. 
Leontius,  29. 
Leoutopohs,   Temple   of,   75,   83,   106, 

161. 
Lindsey,  Mr.  Charles.  522. 


Liddell,  and  Scott,  329. 

Lingard,  279,  409. 

Lisosius,  Sactarist,  271. 

Lonicer,  77. 

Louis  de  Dieu,  383,  460. 

Louis  of  Bavaria,  447. 

Lollardism,  493. 

Louth,  Robert,  460. 

Lucar,  (^yril,  205,  216,  222,  228,  237. 

Lucifer,  Bishop  of  Cagliari,  609. 

Lucke,  587. 

Ludolf,  Job,  252. 

Luther,  58,  77.  146,  283-289,  291,  292, 

378,  452-456,  518.  569,  593. 
Lutherans,  205. 
Lutheran  Consistory,  510. 
Lynch  Law,  519,  582. 
Lysimachus,  174-176. 

M. 

Machabees,  84,  118.  150,  151,  169,  213. 

215. 
Macharius,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Anti- 

och,  215. 
Mac    Knight,    Presbyterian    Minister, 

301-302. 
Maclay,  Archibald,  421. 
Magdala,  Scriptures  at,  253. 
Mai,  Cardinal.  536. 
Maimonides,  186,  188. 
Maitland,  449,  451,  453,  468,  478,  485. 
Malachias,  22.  35,  168,  181,  182. 
Manahen,  183,  184. 
Manes,  267. 
Manicheans,  268. 
Manoah,  187. 

Manuscript  Vatican,  77,  92,  150. 
Sinaitic,  77,  150. 
"  Alexandrian,  77,  150. 

"  Parisian,  77,  150. 

Marchesini,  Mammotrectus,  529, 
Marcion.  267. 
Marcionites.  268. 


:o 


Index. 


Mark  of  Ephesus,  221. 

Marsh,  Anglican  Bishop,  80   262,  502. 

Marsh,  George  F.,  279. 

Marshal,  T.  W.  M.  506. 

Martini,  Archb'p,  435. 

Martyrs  of  Poland  and  Russia,  225. 

Mathesius,  John,  452. 

Massecali,  315. 

Mary,  God's  Mother,  183. 

MayerhofE,  587. 

McCloskey,  Bishop,  424. 

McHale,  Archb'p,  412. 

McMahon,  Rev.  Bernard,  410. 

McMahon,  Rev.  James,  424. 

McNamara,  400,  401,  402,  417. 

Meister,  Anna,  522. 

Melancthon,  202,  203.  518. 

Melchisedech.  34. 

Melito,  125,  130,  143,  144,  596. 

Messiah,  115.  127.  134,  137,  158,  164. 

Methodius,  scliisiu.  Bishop  of  Pisidia 
213. 

Metrophanes,  schism.  Bishop  of  Oyzi- 
cum,  213. 

Metrophanes,  scliism.  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, 222. 

Micliael  III.  or  Bogoris,  218. 

Miesrob,  254. 

Migne,  180. 

Milman,  121. 

Milner,  Isaac,  453. 

Milner,  Bishop,  515. 

Milton,  John,  460. 

Mink,  James,  520. 
Mishna,  32. 

Mogila,  schism.    Metropolitan  of  Mos- 
cow, 228,  229. 
Montanus,  267. 
Moravians,  219. 
Mordechai,  177,  178. 
Moore,  Sir  Thomas.  280.  470.  475. 
Moscow,   Russian    Metropolitan    See 
223. 


Moses,  5,  19,  22,  26,  29,  30,  37,  90-93, 
109,  112,  115,  116,  118-120,  123, 
127,  129,  146,  155,  162,  163,  166, 
167,  180,  362. 

Movers,  56,  70,  75. 

Murray,  Archb'p,  408,  410. 

Muscovite  Bible,  235,  236. 

Mysias  Demetrius,  schism.  Deacon  of 
Constantinople,  202,  203. 

N. 

Names  of  the  Sacred  Books,  3. 

Nary,  Rev.  Cornelius,  402. 

Natalis,  Alexander.  265. 

Nazarites,  155. 

Neander,  587. 

Nectarius,  schism.  Patriarcli  of  Jerusa- 
lem, 229. 

Nehemias,  22,  40,  45,  46,  48,  49,  56, 
57,  66,  67,  87-89,  181. 

Neophyte,  schism.  Patriarcli  of  Anti- 
och.  216. 

Nestorians,  196,  250.  270. 

Neteler,  56,  57,  70. 

Neudecker,  587. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  403. 

Newton,  Isaac,  460. 

Nicholas  I.,  Pope,  218. 

Nicholas,  Czar,  231. 

Nicholas  de  Lyra,  294. 

Nicholson,  John,  254. 

Nicodemus,  120. 

Nicomedia,  bay  of,  209. 

Nikon,  Russian  Patriarch,  225. 

Nitika,  St.,  217. 

Non  Jurors,  238. 

Normans,  484. 

Novella,  139. 

Nyplion,  222. 


o. 

Oil,  354. 

Olshausen,  587. 

Onias  High  Priest  at  Leontopolis,  and 


index. 


66i 


riglitful  High  Priest  at  Jerusalem, 

75,  83,  103,  107,  175. 
•Origcn,  8,  126,  144,  596,  605. 
Osee,  the  Prophet,  181. 
Ozias,  King  of  Jiida,  181. 

P. 

Pacome,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, 222. 

Padua,  205,  206. 

Palestinian  Jews,  109,  122,  144,  148, 
177. 

Pandits,  505. 

Parthenius,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, 213,  236. 

Patton,  Wm.,  421. 

Paul,  Apostle,  185,  191,  349. 

Paul,  Bishop  of  Populania,  218. 

Paul,  Monophysite  Bishop  of  Tehi,  251. 

Paulus,  587. 

Pcga,  Melitius,  schism.  Patriarch  of 
Alexandria,  206. 

Pelagians,  270. 

Pella,  154. 

Peschito,  197. 

PeseZ,  315. 

Peter  the  Great,  227. 

Petit  Radel,  450. 

Pharisees,  119,  155,  165,  184. 

Philaret,  schism.  Metropolitan  of  Mos- 
cow, 232,  237. 

Philastrius,  265,  269. 

Philip,  Metropolitan,  224. 

Philip  the  Hardy,  447. 

Philo,  52,  63-65,  73,  96,  98,  182,  185, 
186. 

Photius,  205,  206. 

Pinkerton,  John,  460,  542. 

Pius  VI.,  Pope. 

Pius  VII.,  Pope,  503. 

Pius  VIII.,  Pope,  503. 

Pius  IX.,  Pope,  503. 

Pollio,  183. 


Pope  and  Maguire,  418. 

Popes,  196,  209. 

Poynter,  407. 

Presbuteros,  347-364. 

Prideaux,  46,  59,  60,  73,  104,  170,  199. 

Friost,  357. 

Propaganda,  S.  Cong,  of,  437. 

Protestant  Bibles,  133. 

Proto-canonical  and  Deutero-canonical, 

15. 
Proverbs,  69,  144. 
Ptolemy,  53. 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  72,  82,  97,  99, 

100,  101. 
Ptolemy  Philometer,  97,  103,  122.  174- 

176. 
Ptolemy,  174. 

Purcell  and  Campbell,  420. 
Purcell,  Archb'p,  424. 
Purim,  63,  82,  174,  177,  178. 
Purvey,  281. 

R.  Akiba,  69,  35. 

R.  Eleazar,  69. 

R.  Johanan,  69. 

R.  Juah,  68. 

R.  Simeon,  69 

K.  Simon,  68. 

Rubbins,  44,  66,  69,  83,  130,  133,  137, 
139,  140-143,  145,  156,  163,  167, 
168,  178,  179,  186. 

Rab.  Juda,  34. 

R.  Moses,  187. 

Ralph  Bishop  of  Rochester,  478. 

Ralph  de  Baudoke  dean  of  London, 
479. 

Raoul  de  Presles,  537. 

Raphael,  aspirant  to  the  schism,  patri- 
archate of  Constantinople,  222. 

Rappe,  Bishop,  424. 

Reinkins,  245. 

Reuss,  Professor,  46,  58,  235,  587. 


662 


Index. 


Revisers  of  the  "  authorized  version," 

341,  369. 
Reviser  of  the  "  Revisers,"  365. 
Renaudot,  215,  257. 
Reynolds,  Bishop,  424. 
Richard  of  Bury,  451. 
Richard  Rolle,  the  Hermit  of  Hampole, 

476. 
Richard  Simon,  53,  59. 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  486,  487. 
Rigby,  Dr.  407. 
Rigdon,  Sidney,  580 
Roman  Pontiff,  199,  201. 
Roberts,  Dr.  Alexander,  365. 
Robertson,  Historian,  454. 
Roseiimullers,  460. 
Ruissvich,  Herman,  282. 
Russians,  196,  217-250. 

S. 

Sacerd,  358. 

Sacerdos,  360,  361. 

Sadducees,  119, 

Salmasins,  289,  460. 

Samaritans,  100,  101,  104. 

Samuel  the  Prophet,  39,  181. 

Sanballat,  48. 

Sanhedrim,  22,  32,  33,  35,  49,  50,  75, 

119,  121. 
Saturniniis,  266. 
Saul  or  Paul,  Apostle,  43. 
Saxon  Chronicle,  480. 
Scaliger,  289. 
Schismatics,  196. 
Schleiermacher,  587. 
Schneckenber^er,  587. 
Schmidt,  586. 
Schott,  587. 
Schrader,  587. 
Schultz,  587. 
Schwegler,  587. 
Schweinfurth,  George  Jacob,  521-526, 
Scotch  Kirk,  510. 


Scribes,  123. 

Scrivener,  386. 

Semitic  characters,  67. 

Semler,  586. 

Senior.  347. 

Septuagint,  72,  77,  79,  80,  81,  100,  109, 

132,  134,  136,  137,  141,   142,    152, 

159,  160,    168,  186,  192   194. 
Serarius,  53. 

Severus,  Bishop  of  Ashmonin,  258. 
Shakespeare's  father,  448. 
Shammai,  51,  68,  123. 
Shea,  John  Gilmary,  L.L.D. 
Sheol,  322. 
Simon  the  Just,  35,  36,  46,  51,  59,  66, 

110. 
Simon,  High  Priest,  118. 
Simon  Magus,  156,  265,  351. 
Simon  Peter,  Apostle.  351. 
Simonians,  268. 
Sindon,  394. 
Sixtus  of  Sienna,  13. 
Slavonic  alphabet,  219. 
Slavonic  Bible,  219. 
Smith,  Professor,  47,  58,  75,   132,   170, 

194,  201,  336,  616. 
Smith,  J.  B.  520. 
Smith,  Joseph,  579. 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  408. 
Sousa,  Emanuel,  537. 
Southcott,  Joanna,  516. 
St.  Germain  de  Pres,  213. 
Spalding,  Solomon,  579. 
Spinoza,  47. 
Stackhouse,  Anglican  Vicar  of  Bctiham. 

74. 
Stephen,  St.,  Proto-marlyr,  73,  191. 
Stephen,  sectarist,  271. 
Stevenson,  J.,  S.  J.,  281,  note  2. 
Sublime  Porte,  207,  216. 
Sultan,  207,  222,  224,  225. 
Susanna,  History  of,  214,  216. 
Svmmachus,  136. 


Index. 


663 


Swedenborg,  460,  577. 
Swiss  Declaration  of  Faith,  556. 
Synod  schismatical  at  Jassy,  212. 
Synod  schismatical  at  Constantinople, 

213. 
Synod  schismatical  at  Jerus;deni,  214. 
Synod  at  Oxford,  494. 
Syers,  Oswald,  408. 
Synopsis,  Athanasian,  27. 
Syriga,  Milelius,  229. 

T. 

Talmud,  31,  73,  128,  163,  188. 

Tatian,  267. 

Tertullian,  27,  132,  265,  268,  602. 

Testament,  Old  and  New,  3. 

Testanioi.t  ni  tlio  twelve  Apostles,  487. 

Theodore  of  Mopsue^Jlia,  69. 

Theodo!^ius  178. 

Theodotian,  136. 

Thebutis,  155. 

Theoplianes,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Je- 
rusalem. 

Tlieoptus,  seliism.  Patriarch  of  Con- 
staiiliiioplo,  223. 

Thomas  and  Valentine,  538. 

Timon,  Bishop,  424. 

Timothy,  schism.  Patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, 207. 

Titus,  Roman  Emperor,  108,  154. 

Tobias,  9,  30,  52,  150,  169,  213,  214, 
216. 

Tournemine,  53,  71. 

Trajan,  Roman  Emperor,  155. 

Troy,  Archb'p,  400,  401,  410. 

Trypho,  131,  192,  193. 

Tver,  Russian  Archb'p,  224. 

Tyndale,  apostate  priest,  303,  325,  379, 
385,  389. 

u. 

Ubaldi,  70,  82,  187. 
Ullman,  587. 
Ulphilas,  536. 


Unguad,  David,  203. 
Usher,  Anglican  Archb'p,  475,  538. 
Urim  and  Thummim,  186,  187. 
Uytenbogaert,  206. 

V. 

Valentinians,  268. 
Van  Ess,  Leander,  502,  511. 
Vassili  IV.,  Russian  Prince,  224. 
f  Vetusltala,  78,  219.228. 

Vulgate,  381,  385. 

Ethiopic,  151,  200. 

Gothic,  151. 

Armenian,  151,  200. 

Syriac  Hexaplar,  151. 

Slavonic,  197. 

Arabic,  200. 

Anglo-Catholic,  380-398. 

Anglo  Protestant,  303-379. 

Other  Protestant,  275-303. 

Vespasian,  Roman  Emperor,   107,   15, 

165. 

Vincenzi,  53,  71,  82. 

Vladimir,  219,  220. 

Vogel,  587. 

Voltaire,  220. 

Von  Hagen,  Cornelius,  206,  208. 

Von  Hurter,  Frederic,  490. 

W. 
Wake,  Anglican  Archb'p,  240. 
Waldensians,  272. 

Waldensian  Confession  of  Faith,  553. 
Walker  Obadias,  276. 
Walsh,  Rev.  P.  A.  400. 
Walter,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  478. 
Walton,  Brian,   Ang.  Bishop,  73,  182, 

198,  199,  261,  383,  460,  517. 
Washington  May,  521. 
Ward's  Errata,  311. 
Wassali  TIL,  Russian  Prince,  223. 
Waring  Dr.,  408. 
Weber,  587. 
Wenlworth,  T.  &  Laura    521. 


664 


Index. 


Westminster  Confession  of  Paith, 
Whelan,  Bishop,  424. 
Whiston,  126,  290,  550. 
Whitfield,  Archb'p,  416. 
Whitaker,  John,  564. 
William  de  Longchamp,  479. 
William  de  Schorham,  476. 
Wittenberg,  202. 
Wisdom,  52,  150,   151.   169,   213, 

216,  259. 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  409. 
Witham,  Dr.,  402. 
Withred,  King  of  Kent,  447. 
Wood,  Anthony,  467,  468,  472. 
Wright,   Anglican   Dr.,    46,    81, 

275,  384,  549. 
Worcester's  Dictionary,  389. 
Worthington,  Dr.,  381. 


553.1  Wulstau,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  481. 
I  Wyckliffe,  269-282,  463,  493. 

X. 


Xavier,  Francis,  St.,  631. 
Xylocaraboeus,    Mark,    schism,    Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople. 


214, 


262, 


Z. 

Zacharias  the  Prophet,  22,  40. 
Zachary,  Father  of  John  the  Baptist, 

184. 
Zempirick,  John,  521. 
Zeuss.  German  Celtic  scholar,  541. 
Zorobabel,   21,  40. 

Zosimus,    Russian  Metropolitan,    224. 
Zuinglius,  292. 


8478TE^  54; 

21-22-04  32188      MS 


BS1135.IVI95 

The  canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00038  2939 


.J 


DATE  DUE 

■'^m^ 

HIGHSMITH  #45115 

